Darren Day guilty of carrying offensive weapon

Darren Day guilty of carrying offensive weapon (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Darren Day has been found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon. The troubled star claimed during the two-day trial at an Edinburgh court that it had not occurred to him that a keyring he was carrying could be considered a weapon. During the trial, Day said he had carried the kubotan keyring, a 5in-long metal stick given to him by a friend, for 14 years. The weapon was found when he was arrested by Lothian and Borders Police after his Mercedes hit a lamppost in Manor Place in Edinburgh in December 2009. The 41-year-old had previously admitted a drink-driving charge dating from that same night, when he was starring in the musical We Will Rock You. He was banned from driving for five years and fined £1,250. Day said he was shocked when he was charged by police, and had told them the item was not an offensive weapon. But during the trial, the sheriff was told by two martial arts experts from Lothian and Borders Police that the kubotan was designed in the 1970s for use by the Los Angeles Police as a self-defence weapon and in a worst case scenario could be used to kill someone. Speaking outside court, Day said: "I'm very relieved it's over. I am deeply sorry and ashamed of what's happened, especially for my family. "I'm just very keen to move on now with my career and my life and leave it behind me."

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.