POLICE raided the home of a former Army medic and seized a replica gun he had used as part of a Lara Croft fancy dress outfit.

Robert Molineaux, 39, bought the fake Uzi to brandish at a party he went to dressed as the computer character.

But weeks later, the gun was spotted on the windowsill of his home by passers-by, who called police.

The door of Mr Molineaux's home in Haxby, York, was kicked down by a firearms unit and the gun was seized.

Mr Molineaux, a theatre support worker at the Purey Cust Nuffield Hospital, in York, said: "If I had been waving it around outside, I could understand that I would be shot at or arrested, but it was in my own house and I was not in."

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "We always operate a policy of better safe than sorry.

"This highlights the perils of having imitation or toy guns that look like the real thing, because they can mislead people.

"We are very pleased that in this case the gun was imitation."