A 24-year-old man who fired an imitation handgun during a spate of offending last year has been jailed.

Adrian Leon Young, of no fixed abode, was sentenced to a total of two years and 10 months by a judge at Bradford Crown Court after he admitted a series of offences committed in March and June, 2021.

Young’s most serious offending involved the repeated use of a black imitation weapon, believed to be a BB gun, which he brandished on three separate occasions in June.

The court heard that the complainant on each occasion was the same man and during one of the confrontations in Todmorden, Calderdale, Young discharged the weapon.

In March 2021 Young was involved in a disturbance at a block of flats and Recorder Ben Nolan QC was told that the defendant was “under investigation” for that incident when he went on to commit the spate of offences over a four-day period in June.

On June 9 Young and others attacked a man as he cycled through a park in Todmorden and during that incident the defendant produced the imitation handgun.

Three days later he again confronted the same victim in Todmorden and this time fired the realistic-looking weapon, but the projectile did not hit the complainant.

The next day there was a further confrontation at a house in Todmorden involving Young, who again produced the handgun, and two accomplices.

Young, who only had one previous conviction for criminal damage, pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, a charge of affray, a charge of threatening behaviour and an allegation of assault.

Jailing Young Recorder Nolan noted that the imitation firearm had never been recovered, but he said it was realistic-looking to the victims and was in all probability a ball-bearing gun.