York woman found with 'taser' claims her dog brought it home

Defence solicitor Jacky East said the weapon had been on some waste land and the pet had taken it from there to Rebecca Hollings’ home.

The 35-year-old woman denies making or using it.

Hollings, then of Dale Street, off Nunnery Lane, York, pleaded guilty to possessing a weapon capable of giving an electrical discharge at York Magistrates' Court.

Her case was adjourned until July 31 so probation officers can write a pre-sentence report on her.

She was released on bail.

Jane Chadwick, prosecuting, said police raided Hollings’ home with a firearms warrant on May 8 last year.

They had received a tip-off she had a weapon and they found the “taser” on a kitchen work top.

She told them her dog had found it in the garden and brought it into the house.

One of her friends had said it looked like a taser.

She accepted she should have taken it to police and not kept it.

Defence solicitor Jacky East said Hollings “had had some difficulties with a group of people".

She said: “She got herself into some trouble over a drug debt.

“She was attacked in her own home by numerous people.”

Her dog had found it on some waste land the day before the police raid, said the defence solicitor.

She had not used it.

Hollings now lives in Hull.

In mid-June last year, York magistrates heard how police had been mounting extra patrols for weeks in the estate off Nunnery Lane that includes Dale Street.

The area had seen a high number of anti-social incidents and public disorder.

Residents had told council officers they had seen drug-related incidents and violence that scared them so much they didn’t want to go to police about them.

Magistrates were hearing an application to make a premises closure order on a house on the estate because of anti-social and other activities taking place in it.

They granted the application.

A man was sentenced at York Crown Court last autumn for having a knuckleduster in the Nunnery Lane estate in May.