A GRANDFATHER threatened to shoot a van driver for parking his vehicle by a grass verge outside his house, York Crown Court heard.

The terrified workman believed that James Richard Moxon was pointing a real German submachine gun at him, capable of firing hundreds of rounds a minute, said Louise Pryke, prosecuting.

The 76-year-old householder had just shouted: "Get this van off my grass or I will shoot you" before going into his house and getting the realistic imitation firearm.

As he took cover behind his vehicle in Burnholme Drive, Tang Hall, the workman shouted to Moxon: "The van isn't on the grass" and eventually Moxon took the gun back into his house.

The workman did not know that the 76-year-old former Merchant Navy senior engineering officer was waving a replica gun that he had made from a kit more than 20 years ago and which was incapable of firing live ammunition.

Moxon later told police "he was fed up with people parking on his grass", said Ms Pryke.

Moxon pleaded guilty to possessing an imitation MP40 folding stock machine gun with intent to make another person fear unlawful violence would be used against him.

He was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months. He had a previous conviction in 2004 for causing actual bodily harm to a neighbour.

Moxon's solicitor advocate Neal Kutte said of the gun incident: "He is generally a law-abiding man. He has lost his temper on this one occasion and has done something to frighten someone with no intent to assault someone."

There was a "long history of parking on the grass" and Moxon felt responsible for the verge. He apologised for his actions.

The 2004 conviction had been for hitting a young lad who lived further along the street with a truncheon because he had been firing fireworks, said Mr Kutte.

Ms Pryke said the workman had been on his way to do some building work at Moxon's neighbour's house when he parked his van by the grass verge. As he was knocking on the neighbour's front door, Moxon came out and ordered him to move his van.

York Press:

Moxon told a probation officer he was used to very high standards and had very high principles because he had had roles in authority both in the Merchant Navy and later with British Railways. He had fallen out with a neighbour nine years earlier over a cat and had approached the police to help him with the grass verge problem, but they had told him it was a matter for the city council, which had installed a bollard to protect the verge. 

More than 1.1 million real MP40 submachine guns were made in Germany before and during the Second World War when they were widely used on the Eastern and Western Fronts by German soldiers and paratroopers.