Man jailed after walking down street armed with gun and dressed in camouflage clothing
A man who terrified a stranger by walking down a Black Country street armed with a gun has been locked up for 12 months.
Kyi Smith, 26, was allegedly wearing camouflage clothing and brandishing an air rifle covered with a black bin bag, a judge heard.
An alarmed woman feared the worst when she saw him walking near Eagle Close, Dudley, on September 24 last year and alerted police who traced and arrested him within 20 minutes.
He had bought the £175 air rifle earlier the same day and it was still wrapped up when the officers arrived, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
The defendant had been jailed for five and a half years in April 2013 for possession of a revolver which was found under a settee at his home during an earlier police raid.
This conviction banned him from having guns - including the potentially lethal high powered air rifle he had just bought - after being freed from the jail early on licence.
But Smith maintained he had not been told this and Mr Charles Hamer, prosecuting, conceded it was not included in the paperwork given to the defendant on release.
Stupid behaviour
Mr Oliver Woolhouse, defending, declared: “If the air rifle needed a firearms certificate it may have been obvious that he would be prohibited from owning one.
“It would be less obvious when the gun is freely on sale to those over the age of 18 and for which there is no need for a licence.
“This would have been a lawful purchase for him if he had not had the previous conviction.
“In any event the air rifle just fell on the wrong side of the threshhold which has to be crossed by a gun to be categorised as among weapons covered by the prohibition order.”
Smith from Washington Court, Hillside Road, Dudley admitted having a firearm when prohibited from doing so.
He was jailed for 12 months by Judge Dean Kershaw who told him: “I cannot conclude that this was blatant abuse because it is unlikely you would have been told you could not possess such a gun and this lowers your blameworthiness.
“But this was stupid behaviour.
“You were showing off, displaying some sort of bravado and the witness who saw you was very frightened.
“She did not realise it was an air gun.
“You were going to deploy it in some way - at what I don’t know - but one wrong move and it does endanger someone’s life.”
