A MAN who carried an axe through Port Glasgow town centre has been jailed for 15 months.

John Kane, 57, claimed to have found the item in a churchyard at midnight as he relieved himself against a tree.

But a jury returned a majority guilty verdict that he had the axe ‘without reasonable excuse’ following a trial held at Greenock Sheriff Court, inset.

Kane claimed in evidence to his solicitor Edward Sweeney that ‘it was just something I found’.

He said he had been drinking cider throughout the day and left a friend’s house in the town’s High Street to return to his Fore Street flat just after midnight on 10 January.

The pair split up and he went to ‘relieve myself’ in a nearby churchyard.

He said: “It was just lying there, it was just something that I found.

“I could sell it to a roofer and get £10 for it.” When asked if he intended to use the axe he replied: “It was midnight in the town, there was no one there to use it as a weapon against.” Under cross-examination he told depute fiscal Lindy Scaife that he had spotted the wooden-handled axe propped against a wall just a few yards from where he stood.

He said: “I just picked it up. Nothing specifically went through my mind about why.” CCTV footage then captured him walking along Church Street apparently hiding the weapon under his arm.

When Ms Scaife asked if he was attempting to conceal the item, he replied that it was the easiest way to carry it, adding: “I had a can of cider in one hand and that in the other. There was no badness to it.” He added: “It was just something I stumbled upon and I took it.” Following the majority guilty verdict, Sheriff Derek Hamilton, right,told Kane that his prison sentence would begin upon the expiry of a separate sentence he is currently serving.