Court: Scarborough man Mark Dixon kept high-voltage stun gun in his flat

Mark Andrew Dixon, 52, had kept the homemade weapon without a firearms certificate at his flat on Ramshill Road.

It was discovered when police swooped on the property in October 2019 and arrested Dixon for an “unrelated matter”, York Crown Court heard.

During the search of the flat, police seized the electric stun gun from a coffee table and a bag of cartridges in the living room, as well as an air pistol from a cupboard and a dummy cartridge.

Prosecutor Ben Thomas said Dixon had made the high-volt weapon himself with components including a power source, charge-generating unit, a push button and a set of metallic electrodes.

“One of the cartridges in the bag was a .17 HMR (Hornady Magnum Rimfire) in working condition,” added Mr Thomas.

Dixon - who has a long criminal record - did not have the requisite firearms certificate for this ammunition.

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The other cartridges were of the shotgun variety and did not require certification under the Firearms Act. They were therefore legally owned, as was the air pistol.

Following his arrest for the firearms matter, police came across mobile-phone footage where someone had filmed Dixon using the stun gun and saying: “Don’t get me on (the video).”

The “crackle” of the stun gun could be heard in the background, although there was never any suggestion that Dixon had used the weapon for criminal purposes.

He appeared for sentence on Tuesday after pleading guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon and the .17 HMR cartridge without a certificate, although there was no evidence the ammunition had been used.

Dixon had 17 previous convictions for many offences and in February last year he was given a 12-week suspended prison sentence for breaching a non-molestation order. This offence occurred about three months after his arrest for the firearms matter.

Dixon is still subject to the suspended sentence, which will expire in a few weeks’ time.

His solicitor advocate David Camidge was spared the need to mitigate after judge Simon Hickey said he would not be imposing a custodial sentence for the firearms.

Dixon was given an 18-month community order with 100 hours’ unpaid work and a 30-day rehabilitation programme.