Grandmother's gun sentenced quashed

Gail Cochrane, 53, was instead ordered to perform 240 hours of community service after appeal judges overturned her sentence.

Ms Cochrane pleaded guilty to having a prohibited weapon – a Browning 7.65mm self-loading pistol – contrary to the Firearms Act 1968, at a hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on April 26. She was sentenced to five years, the minimum penalty for the offence in the absence of "exceptional circumstances".

Her father had served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and Ms Cochrane found the pistol among his possessions after he died in about 1981. She claimed to have kept it for sentimental reasons and said it did not occur to her to hand it in to the authorities.

Police found the weapon under the mattress of her bed on June 17, 2009 when they went to her house in Dundee to look for her son, for whom they had an outstanding arrest warrant.

Although in poor external condition it was still in working order. Ms Cochrane had no ammunition for it.

The appeal judges found that the sentencing judge did not appear to have attached significance to Ms Cochrane's role in the care of her grandchildren, whose mother had a drug problem. It was also not apparent that the sentencing judge took account of her evidence that she was unaware that she needed a licence for the pistol.