A BEGGAR found sitting outside a bank with a luminous orange toy gun has been found guilty of having an imitation weapon, despite a firearms expert confirming it was a child's plaything.
Scott Park was arrested after being found with the item outside the Royal Bank of Scotland in Stirling city centre on a Sunday afternoon last June.
Park, 33, who had found the item on a patch of waste ground was initially charged with a breach of the peace.
Prosecutors later changed the charge to breaching the Firearms Act by being in possession of an imitation weapon without lawful authority or reasonable excuse.
Sheriff Derek O'Carroll said the case raised a major public policy issue.
Sheriff O'Carroll found Park, of Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, guilty of the firearms offence and deferred sentence for reports.
He said: "I find on the evidence of the two police officers that the thing they saw had the appearance of being a firearm and I find you guilty".
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