A convicted drug dealer found with a potentially deadly stun gun has been jailed.
The prohibited weapon was disguised as a mobile telephone and was found by police officers in the house Rory Mulligan shared with his daughter.
He told the court it had come as a surprise to discover that the item was a prohibited weapon as it “did not jump” and instead had to be “in contact with the body” to activate.
Mulligan also claimed that the weapon had “never been charged” and had been brought to the house by a friend who had subsequently left it behind.
Sheriff Simon Collins QC, however, disdained that explanation, given the 33-year-old’s previous conviction for drug dealing.
He said: “You have a previous conviction for the supply of a controlled drug and have served a lengthy prison sentence for that.
“In that context, I cannot think that this item was innocently within your home.
“This device is designed and intended to disable by means of passing a substantial electrical shock through the body.
“It has no other purpose.
“To think that it would not be prohibited is naive in the extreme.
“I am told that you live with your daughter and the fact that this device was disguised as a mobile phone and that it was lying around the house makes this even more worrying.”
Mulligan, of Findowrie Street in Dundee, admitted being in possession of a prohibited weapon in the city’s Arklay Place on February 21, 2014, contrary to the Firearms Act 1968.
Sheriff Collins jailed him for 145 days.
