A TEENAGER who twice threatened to shoot people has been jailed for two years.

Although it emerged that the weapon brandished by Coray Dent was an imitation handgun, people who saw it believed it was real.

Dent, 19, was yesterday sent to a young offenders’ institution after admitting two charges of possessing of a handgun with intent to cause fear of violence.

Durham Crown Court heard the first incident took place after Dent boarded the number 21 bus, in Chesterle- Street, on April 25.

Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said he sat next to a young man on the top deck, and began talking to him.

Dent asked him if he knew a certain person and, producing the handgun, told him to pass on a message that he would shoot him.

Miss Masters said the man on the bus was an Army cadet and was “fearful”, believing the gun to be genuine.

When Dent got off the bus in the Market Place, in Bishop Auckland, he was reported to police.

Although Dent was seen on CCTV, he had not been arrested by the time of the second incident, four days later, on April 29.

Miss Masters said Dent was seen near a pizza shop in Bondgate, Bishop Auckland, banging his head on a wall, waving his arms and shouting: “Gypsy bastards, I’ll kill you.”

He approached three men eating chips in a parked van and pointed the handgun at them, shouting: “Where are they?”

Dent then threatened to kill them and, approaching again, appeared to fire at them. They drove off and alerted police.

Dent was arrested and police found the pistol and pellets in his flat, in Bondgate, Bishop Auckland.

Paul Abrahams, mitigating, said it was a legallyheld air pistol, “meant to scare” rather than cause physical harm.

He said that Dent, a “lightly convicted” former store worker, is “something of an enigma”, who tried to, falsely, portray himself as a serious criminal.

Recorder Graeme Hyland told Dent: “You put a number of people in genuine fear for their lives.”

He also ordered confiscation of the pistol.