Pictured: Terrifying arsenal of almost 500 guns and 200,000 rounds of ammunition seized from parish council chairman who collected firearms 'like stamps'

This is the terrifying collection of nearly 500 guns and 200,000 rounds of ammunition which was seized from a parish council chairman who collected firearms 'like stamps'.

Police revealed the full extent of their discovery at the home of crane operator James Arnold in Wyverstone, Suffolk. It is the biggest arsenal of illegal weapons ever found in the UK.   

Three months after the discovery and the 49-year-old's arrest in April 2014, Arnold died of pancreatic cancer, meaning he could never face prosecution.

But as firearms dealer Anthony Buckland, 65, was jailed for at Norwich Crown Court for supplying some of the weapons, Suffolk Police opened up its armoury to journalists to highlight the massive scale of the find.

They revealed that, had the weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they would have been enough to arm nine coach-loads of terrorists.

Chief Superintendent David Skevington said: 'James Arnold never offered any explanation for what he did; he simply said he had come by the weapons years ago and kept them safe to stop them causing any harm.

'We have asked every question and followed every line of inquiry and have found no evidence of a criminal or terrorist motive.

'The best explanation to date is that he was a collector and a hoarder who collected these weapons in the way some people collect stamps.'

Officers were first called to Arnold's terraced home, which is down a single-track lane with only three other houses and a farm nearby, on April 13, 2014 to reports of a domestic violence incident.

They had planned to revoke his licence for 17 firearms to prevent them being used in a domestic attack but when they arrived they found other illegal weapons strewn on the living room floor.

Further investigation alerted them to the fact the internal layout of the house did not match its external footprint.

A search then uncovered a hidden room, accessed through a narrow tunnel hidden behind a false wall in his pantry.

Officers spent 27 days searching the house, working meticulously with bomb disposal experts to ensure the house was not booby-trapped.

The find is far larger than any other cache found in this country.

One of the previous largest hauls is believed to have been that of 31 rifles and machine pistols found along with 1,000 rounds of ammunition on a boat at Cuxton Marina on the River Medway in Kent in August 2015.

Arnold's house backs on to an eight-acre field which he also owned. Around this he constructed a huge wall from sleepers which police believe may have been a home-made firing range.