Man was carrying imitation gun 'after row about a cat'

At Ballymena Magistrates Court, Jonathan Wilson (30), with an address listed as Millfield in Ballymena, was sentenced on charges of carrying an imitation firearm in public - the Rectory Meadow area of Broughshane - and being disorderly in Broughshane on January 4 this year.

A prosecutor said police received a report of a male "with a gun" at Rectory Meadow around four o'clock in the afternoon. A description was given and officers located the defendant who matched the description.

Wilson told officers: "I knew you were coming". A 'BB gun' was located in a property in Broughshane where the defendant was.

When being taken to a police vehicle, the defendant was shouting and swearing at top of his voice. A female told police she had been "in fear" when she saw Wilson with the gun.

When interviewed the defendant said he had been drinking and he had "no memory" of the incident.

He was also sentenced on a charge of possessing a kitchen knife in a public place - Dunclug Park in Ballymena - on September 24 last year.

At 3am police were tasked to a phone box following a call from a male saying: "I'm just letting you know I have a knife, so f**k you."

Police found Wilson sitting on the ground beside the phone box and a "30cms long" kitchen knife was found in a flowerbed behind him.

Meanwhile, at 4pm on April 24 this year, the defendant, who had been clutching a bottle of wine, damaged a plant pot; was disorderly and resisted a police officer. Wilson told police he couldn't remember anything due to drinking.

A defence barrister said the imitation gun incident happened when the defendant had been at the address of a family member and at the time he had been "drinking a bottle of whiskey a day".

The lawyer said there had been an "argument with one of his neighbours about a cat and he decided, in an intoxicated state, to go out and remonstrate with the neighbour".

The barrister said his client had no recall of the incident but Wilson accepted the neighbour's instructions that he was out with a BB gun "giving off about the neighbour's cat". The lawyer added: "Thank goodness no one was physically assaulted."

He said he understood the BB gun did not "look very like the real thing" but instead it was "multi-coloured". He said the phone box incident, when Wilson was drunk, had been a "cry for help".

The flower pot incident involved the defendant being drunk again and his "reputation was going down the gutter very rapidly". However, things have changed, said the lawyer, and Wilson has been off alcohol for some time.

District Judge Nigel Broderick said they were "serious maters" because the BB gun was a matter of concern especially because the defendant had been intoxicated.

The judge added: "This was a functional firearm and could have caused serious harm if used for the wrong purpose."

He said being intoxicated with a knife was also worrying. The judge put Wilson on Probation for a year with a condition that he goes on any addiction programme deemed necessary.