Phillip Hammond, 57, received it two years before his arrest at his then home in Wharton Street, South Shields.

Prosecutors claimed it was charged up – and a friend who saw it alerted police but wrongly informed them it was a Taser.

Hammond, now of Candlish Street, South Shields, was raided by police who found it in a black pouch on Wednesday, May 27.

Prosecutor Leanne Duffy told magistrates in South Tyneside: “Police received information that there was a Taser at the defendant’s address.

“They speak to the defendant and ask if he has it. He tells them, ‘It’s in the drawer there, do you want it?’

“It was in a small black pouch. The device was a stun gun and it was charged.”

Kevin Smallcombe, defending, told the hearing: “It’s referred to as charged. It had not been charged. It had been there for a couple of years.

“It had been sent to the UK from the Philippines, it had been sent by his wife. It hadn’t been charged since it was sent over.

“It was somebody who was in his house as a friend, who had taken it upon herself to notify. The police had brought it straight out.

“His wife was abroad, he’s in a loving relationship, and for whatever reason, had been sent it over.

“He had never recognised the significance of what he had. There’s an early, timely guilty plea.

“There’s no previous type of offence or anything else underlying.”

Hammond pleaded guilty to possessing a weapon for the discharge of a noxious liquid or gas for electrical incapacitation.

They handed him a six-week electronically monitored curfew order, reduced to four weeks for his early admission of guilt.

The order prohibits him from leaving home between the hours of 7pm and 6am until midnight on Monday, March 29.

He must pay a £95 victim surcharge and £85 court costs, and the court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the stun gun.

Police seize stun gun sent from Philippines during raid on South Shields home