A north-east drug dealer has been jailed for five years after being found in possession of a disguised stun gun following a raid on his home.
Officers picked-up Connor Stewart and a stash of heroin after arriving at an address in Aberdeen’s Fraser Court in September last year.
The city’s sheriff court heard the stun gun – initially appearing to be a mobile telephone – was discovered in a drawer in his bedroom.
The Crown accepted it belonged to another unnamed individual and that Stewart had not used it in illegal activity.
Nonetheless, he was prosecuted to the full extent of the law with a sheriff deciding there were no exception circumstances that would prevent him from imposing the five year sentence demanded for possession of such illegal weapons.
Stewart confessed to being involved in the supply of drugs and possession of a prohibited weapon.
The court heard there were 6.51 grams of heroin found, with a potential street value of £650.
Fiscal depute Jamie Dunbar said yesterday: “The accused’s position was that someone had given him the stun gun.
“He had tested it a week prior to the police attending at the house and then put it in a bedside cabinet drawer.”
Representing the 25-year-old, defence agent Peter Shepherd said his client had been given the stun gun but initially did not know what it was or that it was illegal.
He added that he later found out what it was when he tested it and saw a spark then put it away, with no intention of using it.
Imposing a sentence, Sheriff Jack Brown said he did not believe those amounted to exceptional circumstances.
He said: “The case advanced on your behalf I take to be that you were significantly abusing drugs at the time of these offences.
“You were not aware that the item was a prohibited weapon and you took it and put it into a drawer and did nothing more with it and that you had no intention of using the weapon for any purpose and that taking these matters into account it would be disproportionate to impose the minimum sentence.
“I am not persuaded this case falls in that category.”
He jailed Stewart, a prisoner in HMP Grampian, for five years.
Stewart was previously jailed for nine months last year for brandishing a knife in Aberdeen city centre.