A YOUNG man walked into a police station and handed over a sub-machine gun after crumbling under the pressure of “minding” it.

Shaun Wood had run up a drug debt with his Childwall dealer after losing his job.

To pay off the £200 cannabis bill he agreed to store small amounts of the drug at his home in Clayford Crescent, Knotty Ash.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the 22-year-old was ordered to hold increasingly serious drugs, including crack cocaine, until he was given the MAC sub-machine gun and ammunition.

But Charles Lander, prosecuting, told the court after three months holding the weapon the pressure eventually got to Wood, who had repeatedly asked for the gun to be removed.

He picked up the weapon and began to walk around Southport – eventually going to the town’s police station where “visibly shaking and distressed” he voluntarily handed it over.

Wood told officers he had simply wanted to get rid of the firearm and had been contemplating suicide.

He admitting filling the gun with bullets, but said he had been unable to sleep while it was in his house.

Yesterday Judge Sean Duncan said he accepted the circumstances were exceptional enough to reduce the statutory five year jail term and sentenced Wood to 2½ years in prison.

He branded Wood’s decision “brave”.