Rat Taser led to weapons conviction for golf pro

A golf professional has been convicted of a weapons offence after a “comedy of errors” in which he bought a 50,000volt Taser gun to exterminate a plague of rats at his training school.

Richard Gilling, 53, had acquired the illegal stun gun online for £20 but ended up not using it on the rats. Instead, he forgot about it and left it behind at his former home in Lymm, Cheshire, where it was discovered more than two years later and reported to police who found Gilling’s fingerprints on the Taser manual.

Gilling pleaded guilty to possession of the weapon and was conditionally discharged for 12 months at Warrington magistrates’ court.