Clydebank man caught with antique gun jailed

A man caught red-handed delivering an antique musket from Clydebank to East Kilbride has been jailed for 30 months.

21 year-old Jay Haggerty, from Clydebank, was nabbed with the weapon in Juniper Avenue, East Kilbride, on August 29, last year, after police received a tip-off.

He said that he was couriering the weapon to pay off a drug debt.

Yesterday at the High Court in Glasgow judge Lady Stacey told Haggerty: “This court has to take a very serious view of this. I'm sure you appreciate what devastation such firearms can cause and the alarm they cause to the public..”

Prosecutor Michael Meehan said that police were informed the gun was in the silver Volkswagen Polo in which Haggerty was a passenger.

The court heard that he paid a friend £30 to drive him to East Kilbride. On the way he asked her to stop and another man got in after placing a black holdall in the boot.

They gave the driver a postcode destination and as they approached East Kilbride the second man called someone to advise they were five minutes away.

When the car was searched by police the gun - a muzzle-loading musket of unknown age with a shortened barrel – was found along with a butterfly knife.

Haggerty asked the police to let his companions go saying: “It’s nothing to do with them, it’s mine, let them go.”

Mr Meehan said of the gun: It was a muzzle-loading single shot percussion musket of unknown age or origin. It was not a modern reproduction and was not in working order owing to a trigger fault. The barrel had been shortened to less than two feet.

“If kept as a curiosity or an ornament it may be considered an antique and may be freely possessed,” said Meehan.

But this legal get-out did not apply to the man in the dock because of his custodial record.

Mr Meechan added: ““The accused accepts it was not possessed as a curiosity or an ornament.”

He pleded guilty to two offences under the Firearms Act and a further charge of having a knife in a public place.

Haggerty has since been jailed for 12 months on a separate matter.

Defence counsel Lorraine Glancy said that Haggerty had had a troubled childhood and added: “He was approached and told he could pay off a drug debt.