Man found with sten gun facing five years in jail

Intended to convert deactivated relic to fire blanks

A Dundee man who altered a deactivated submachine gun is facing a five-year jail sentence.

Paul Markie was caught with ammunition and component parts of a prohibited weapon after being freed early from a previous five-year sentence for a firearm crime.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that police received intelligence Markie, 60, had bought a deactivated Second World War sten gun.

Detectives searched his home in the city’s Albert Street and two boxes containing blank ammunition were found, along with component parts for the gun.

Unemployed Markie, who followed court proceedings by a video link to prison, admitted unlawfully possessing the ammunition on June 24, having been sentenced to five years imprisonment at the High Court in Glasgow in 2016.

He also pled guilty to having component parts of a prohibited weapon on the same day, which carries a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment.

Defence solicitor advocate Chris Fyffe said: “The accused’s position is relatively straightforward. He purchased the item as a deactivated firearm.”

“He intended to make it into a blank firer, thinking he could then sell it on to another dealer and increase the value of the item. It was an act of folly on his part which he accepts.”

The judge, Lady Poole, deferred sentence on Markie until next week.

The Kirriemuir home of Peter Pan author JM Barrie has been put up for sale. Barrie lived in Strath View on Forfar Road with his parents from 1872. Estate agents Thorntons are asking for £160,000 for the three-bedroom townhouse.

A plaque on the building reads: “The residence of the late Sir James M Barrie Bart, OM, novelist and playwright.”

The home still has many of its “original features” including “stained glass panelling and ornate ceiling plasterwork”. The house is not Barrie’s birthplace, which is also in Kirriemuir and a National Trust for Scotland visitor attraction.