A MAN who took out a taser in a pub scrap has been warned he could be jailed.
James Dean Webdell was involved in a brawl at the Tap and Barrel on Manchester Road last July when witnesses said he produced what looked like a torch with “wires protruding from the end”.
Having pleaded guilty to the offence of possessing an electrical incapacitation device under the Firearms Act, he was warned he faces up to two years in jail.
Prosecutor Pauline Lambert said the device was disguised as a torch and called it a “flashing taser gun”.
But she was unsure whether the 33-year-old had actually used it - and the victim wouldn’t provide a statement.
Defending, Mark Glendenning said: “He has produced it but he says he was not intending to use it.
“There was fighting in the pub, there was pushing and shoving, he has produced something. The Crown can’t prove it was used.”
She told Webdell, of Conan Doyle Walk in Liden, there were three options – and one of those options of not going to prison would be “off the table” if he didn’t comply with probation.
“The better the report, the better your chance of staying out of prison,” she said.
The case will be heard at the same court on September 12.
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