“A north-east man has been convicted of owning two homemade guns at his farm in Aberdeenshire,” Scotland’s pressandjournal.co.uk reports. Fifty-four-year-old farmer Raymond Panton [above] faces a five-year mandatory minimum jail sentence for the homemade shotguns. “Over the course of the trial, the court heard evidence that Panton and [farm co-owmner] Mr Robertson had acquired the illegal weapons after two masked robbers armed with swords raided their home in April this year. It was said the robbers stole a hoard of cannabis plants and threatened the pair with violence.” And so the landowners tooled-up . .
The court heard that after the incident, Panton armed himself with baseball bats and other weapons for protection but he denied having any prior knowledge of the firearms.
During a police interview, he claimed he had discovered two metal tubes hidden in Mr Robertson’s bedroom at the farm.
He said that once he looked at them he realised – if he slotted them inside each other using a pumping motion – shotgun cartridges could be fired.
Panton called the police and asked them to attend at Parkhill Stores, Greens, New Deer, where they lived at the time.
The pair were then arrested in connection with owning the illegal guns.
Wait. What? Panton called The Old Bill on the illegal shotguns and they arrested him? I guess we can log this under “no good deed goes unpunished.” That said, “Panton was also convicted of acting in a threatening and abusive manner when officers attended to search his property.” In other words, he took the hump when the cops arrested him for his mate’s homemade guns. Who’d a thunk it?