POLICE have seized and destroyed 2,000 guns in the North-East during the past year.

The weapons were handed in by members of the public or taken by police officers during operations.

Between April last year and March this year, the number of guns seized by Durham Police rose by about 25 per cent on the previous year, to about 800.

A spokesman said that many of the weapons were air or imitation weapons, although there were other more sinister pieces.

They included a stun gun, seven blank-firing handguns, 11 air rifles, 15 air pistols, 14 shotguns, 14 rifles and one pistol.

A similar situation has been reported on Teesside, where 410 weapons have been handed in or seized by police, which is a slight increase on previous years.

The vast majority of these were air rifles and imitations, but there were also handguns and sawn-off shotguns.

However, in Northumbria, the number of weapons made safe by police has remained fairly constant over the past few years.

From July last year to June this year, more than 1,100 weapons came into the possession of Northumbria Police.

This total comprised 505 air weapons, 291 shotguns, 153 replicas, 114 rifles, 33 handguns, and 29 others.

Police in Durham and Cleveland said that although they may seem harmless, imitation weapons are a serious problem, because it is often impossible to tell the difference between real guns and replica ones.

The Durham force spokesman said: "Replica and imitation weapons that pass into the hands of irresponsible people, that is to say those who point weapons at police officers or members of the public, put themselves at very real risk, as has been demonstrated recently in London."

The figures come after a report into handguns which revealed that the criminal use of handguns has increased by almost 40 per cent in the three years following their ban in 1997 in the wake of the Dunblane tragedy.

The report Illegal Firearms in the UK was commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting.