A mountain of weapons handed to Sussex Police in a guns amnesty has been destroyed.

About 2,000 firearms were surrendered during the month-long campaign earlier this year.

Now the illegally-held guns have been melted down to make reinforcement rods for use in the building industry.

Officers supervised the transportation of the arsenal and watched it being destroyed.

The foundry's location was kept secret for security reasons.

The force received no payment for the metal.

A spokeswoman said: "There is very little value in the metal the guns produce. The foundry is kind enough to melt them down for us."

More than half of the arms were handed over in the final week of April and of the 1,997 total, 286 were prohibited weapons, including handguns.

More than 32,000 rounds of ammunition were also surrendered.

Assistant Chief Constable Geoff Williams said: "The significant number of weapons surrendered was due to effective media coverage which encouraged members of the public to hand in weapons, as well as police officers making collections from people's homes.

"We were overwhelmed by the response from the public and their support. People will be pleased to see the weapons were put to good use."