A Kendal man has been sentenced for illegally possessing an electronic stun gun he was given as a Christmas present.
Carlisle Crown Court heard the fully operational Taser-style item was found in a bedroom cupboard as police searched the home of 23-year-old Fletcher Leon Cannon on March 26 this year.
This, it emerged, could be used a hand-held item from close range although seven cartridges also recovered from the bedroom would allow it to be discharged from distance.
“He told the officers, as he continued to tell them during his interview, that he was given the Taser device as a Christmas gift,” said prosecutor Gerard Rogerson, “and that he had been assured by the friend who gifted it to him that the device was legal to possess in the United Kingdom.”
That was not the case, however, and Cannon, of Stockgate, Kendal, admitted possessing a prohibited weapon when brought to court.
He had claimed to police he forgot it was there and that it had been simply thrown in a cupboard. He declined to name the Christmas gift giver, but insisted he had no intention of using the device.
Cannon, of Stockgate, Kendal, was given a 12-month community order which included a rehabilitation activity requirement and four-month electronically monitored night-time curfew.
The judge, Recorder Eric Lamb, also directed that the device and cartridges should be forfeited and destroyed.
