Man had unlicensed air rifle

A Plean man was last week fined a total of £840 for possessing an unlicensed air rifle.

Dominic Mearns had admitted a charge of having the firearm without an air weapon certificate – contrary to the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 – at his home in the village’s Church Lane on July 2, 2021.

The fiscal depute told Stirling Sheriff Court last Wednesday that police officers executed a search warrant at the Old Plean property where they found the air rifle.

She said a certificate was required to hold the weapon at the locus which the 47-year-old accused did not have.

His solicitor Frazer Mccready told

Sheriff Derek Hamilton that his client had pleaded guilty “straight away” to the offence.

Mearns had bought the weapon when he had lived in the Perthshire area where he went ferreting, adding that he would shoot rabbits with permission from the farmer.

When he moved to Old Plean four years ago the air rifle was locked up and Mearns had forgotten that it was there.

The gun had belonged to Mearns before the 2015 Act which requires a licence for ‘low-powered’ air weapons.

Mr Mccready further pointed out that the accused was self employed and his finances “tight”.

He asked the sheriff to take account of the early guilty plea and impose a financial penalty.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Hamilton said he accepted that Mearns had possessed the air rifle for some time.

But he pointed out that it was not something to be “treated lightly”.

The maximum penalty, he added, for having an unlicensed air weapon was 12 months in custody, a £10,000 fine, or both.

A message, he said, had to “go out to others who choose to have these weapons unlicensed.”

He fined Mearns £800 plus a £40 surcharge payable at a rate of £100 per month.