A man who hid a loaded gun under his bed ready to fire has been jailed for five years after detectives raided a council flat in Bethnal Green.

Bozlu Miah, a 36-year-old living in Portman Place, off Globe Road, admitted in court to possessing a firearm “with intent to endanger life” and possessing the ammunition to go with it.

The raid on the flat in a block next to Morpeth School was carried out by specialist officers from the Met’s Central East Command “gangs taskforce” working on a tip-off, Scotland Yard confirmed today.

They carried out an intelligence-led search with a warrant at the address where Miah was known to be living.

The ready-loaded gun was underneath Miah’s bed wrapped in plastic bags and hidden in a gift bag.

Officers made the gun safe before sending it off to the Met’s forensic labs for testing, where it was established to be “a viable firearm” ready to be used.

“We are working around the clock to locate and remove weapons from the streets of London,” Pc Shah Haque said.

“Tackling violent crime is a priority to bring anyone carrying or holding firearms and other lethal weapons to justice.”

Miah was arrested by gang taskforce officers on April 9 and charged that day with suspicion of possessing a firearm with intent, then appeared in court on Thursday (October 1).

He was slapped with two five-year prison stretches, to run together, by a judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

The evidence gathered against Miah by the Central East taskforce, which covers Tower Hamlets and neighbouring Hackney, was part of a wider operation across London.

Finding the loaded gun under his bed left him “with no option but to plead guilty” when he appeared in the dock, following the raid on the flat where he was living.