A WANNABE gangster caught with hard drugs and two firearms was described by his barrister as "not the brightest lad" as he was jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Robert Waller, 20, was said to have been naive and gullible to hold onto the illegal items for members of a criminal gang he was desperate to be a part of.

Waller had been caught with a mobile phone with text messages offering to supply drugs, and posted a picture of himself online with guns as he was due to go on trial.

Rod Hunt, mitigating, said the photographs were an "unbelievably stupid" idea.

The barrister told Teesside Crown Court: "His family, who are in court today, concede he fell in with a very bad crowd, was anxious to please them, and become, as it were, one of them.

"They know he is not the brightest lad in the world . . . this is a young man who went through his teenage years thinking he was Jack the Lad, running with these people, and he knows now that he is not."

The court heard how a French police pistol and what was described as "a tube with a firing mechanism" were found at Waller's home in Grangetown, Middlesbrough, last July.

Neither device was in working order, could only be fixed by experts, and ammunition seized along with them could not be used in either.

Days earlier, Waller was stopped in a car and had £240 worth of heroin, 29 sleeping tablets worth £1 each, a £10 cannabis stash and some cash. Two other men avoided prosecution.

He admitted possessing Class A and Class C drugs with intent to supply, offering to supply Class A and B drugs, possessing two firearms without certificates and possessing expanding ammunition.