Man who kept guns avoids 5-year term

A MAN who kept a sawn-off shotgun and a pistol in his garden shed has escaped the minimum five-year sentence for possessing a firearm due to "exceptional circumstances".

William Taylor, 30, who was yesterday jailed for three years and four months, said he found a bag containing the weapons - and four rounds of ammunition - while he was out with his son on his bike.

He earlier admitted breaches of the Firearms Act.

Solicitor advocate Stuart Carson, defending, said Taylor, of Castlebrae Rigg, Edinburgh, had planned to hand the guns over to the police and initially took the weapons from the field where he found them to stop any children getting them.

Mr Carson added that Taylor had been affected by head injuries as a child and was brain damaged which affected his ability to think.