Man took and shared selfies with illegal guns

A man who took and shared pictures of himself holding illegal guns has been jailed for six years.

Tyler Davidson, 30, took selfies with weapons and sent "bravado" laden messages in which he said he would do a "Raoul Moat", Teesside Crown Court heard.

His DNA was found on a pistol discovered in a car and a sawn-off shotgun hidden in a bag in woodland, with Davidson saying he was looking after the weapons for others.

Davidson, of Rochester Road in Stockton, admitted possessing prohibited weapons.

The pistol and six rounds of ammunition were found in a car stopped by police after a reported firearms incident in Grangetown on 31 July 2025, prosecutor Annelise Haugstad said.

Four days later a bag was found containing a loaded sawn-off shotgun in woodland about a mile from his home, the court heard.

Several DNA profiles including Davidson's were found on the weapon.

Officers also found selfies Davidson had taken of himself holding the pistol which he had posted on social media, the court heard.

He had written messages including "I want to shoot them" and "Raoul Moat it soon mate", as well as "I'm going to blast a few tomorrow" and "if he was around I'd shoot the face off him".

Davidson had 29 offences on his criminal record including for robbery, affray and poessing a machete in public.

In mitigation, the court heard Davidson had been looking after the guns for other people and had no intention of using them.

Judge Peter Armstrong said he accepted Davidson's claims but it "had to be clear" he "must have known there was a real high risk" of the weapons "being used by others for criminal purposes".

The threatening messages were shared out of "bravado", the judge said.

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Supt Stuart Hodgson of Cleveland Police, said the weapons were "viable firearms" and the shotgun had been "deliberately concealed and hidden away in woodland".

Such weapons were usually associated with "serious and organised crime" and used to cause "serious violence and harm" to communities, he said.

He urged anyone with information about weapons to contact police so they could "remove firearms from the hands of dangerous criminals".

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