By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 12:03, Wednesday, 16 January 2013

A man the police describe as being too “volatile” to be allowed guns has been left with a near-£7,500 bill after failing in an attempt to win back his firearms licences.

Related: Gun licence was withdrawn from 'volatile' Cumbrian man

Robert Cubby, a 34-year-old forestry worker, had his shotgun and firearms certificates withdrawn by the police after he was convicted of a violent assault on his ex-wife.

On Monday, he began an appeal against that decision, claiming that conviction – along with other worries the police had about his behaviour over the past 10 years – was not enough to justify it.

But yesterday Judge Barbara Forrester, who heard the case with two independent magistrates, upheld the ban “in the interests of public safety”.

The court agreed with the view of Cumbria’s assistant chief constable Jerry Graham that Cubby could not be trusted to keep firearms without being a danger to the safety of the public.

Cubby, who lives with his mother in Glassonby, near Penrith, was also ordered to pay the £7,480 costs of the hearing.

Cubby was once one of the youngest people in Cumbria to hold a firearms licence but he lost it in May 2010 after he was found guilty of common assault by throwing kitchen utensils including a Yorkshire pudding tray at his estranged wife when he asked her about a new relationship she had entered into.

Before that he had come to the attention of the police in 1999 after he used “excessive force” on a customer while working as a doorman at a Penrith pub and again in 2005 when his wife Gillian called for help after he threatened to kill her.

And in April 2010 a woman traffic warden complained that he had assaulted and shouted at her after she booked him for parking on a double yellow line outside a primary school.

He was charged with common assault in respect of that incident, but it was dropped on the day he was due to go on trial.

The appeal hearing was told that Cubby had acknowledged his own propensity for violence by going to his GP and asking to be referred for anger management training.

He also once admitted to the police that he could be “aggressive and intimidating” and that because of it “most people” were scared of him.

Mr Graham told the court this week he had taken all these incidents into account when exercising his power to refuse Cubby a firearms licence.

“I took the view that over 10 years there were several examples that led me to believe he was a volatile individual who had a temper that on occasions led him into acts of violence,” he said, adding that he took such a decision only rarely and only when “I have very serious concerns”.

First published at 11:53, Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk