A 20-year-old with a 'fascination' for banned weapons was jailed yesterday as the judge said he had a duty to protect society.

Siergio Drover Perinchief, 20, of Dudley Hill, Paget, pleaded guilty to the possession of three prohibited weapons in May this year.

He is already serving a three-year sentence for assaulting Matthew Sousa with a pitch fork on October 10, 2007, because of insulting graffiti he believed Mr. Sousa drew.

Mr. Sousa ended up in the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital with nine stab wounds — seven to his back, one to his shoulder and one to the left side of his chest.

On the same day, Perinchief's house was searched and Police discovered the prohibited weapons, which included an air rifle replica of an AK47 assault rifle, a sling shot and a commercially manufactured catapult.

He was sentenced in Magistrates' Court on Tuesday by Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner to two years imprisonment for possession of the air rifle to run concurrent with his previous assault sentence.

Then yesterday in Supreme Court, Perinchief was given another two years imprisonment and three years probation to run concurrently to the previous sentences for his sling shot.

Crown Prosecutor Cindy Clarke asked that the charge for the third weapon remain on his record, but they would not pursue it at this time.

Perinchief, who was 19 at the time of the offences, said: "I apologise. I have learnt my lesson."

However, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves would have nothing of the apology as he lambasted him for his fascination with weapons and the need to protect society from him.

"A young man like that at that age has three types of real-looking weapons in his house? In this day and age we just cannot look at these things and look off anymore," he said

"We are seeing worldwide some strange behaviour by young men. We had someone in Finland who went into a tech school and wounded ten people and he seemed to have a fascination with weapons.

"And we had the Columbine experience and the experience of the young gentleman at Virginia Tech.

"It's a pity we have to live in a society where we have to be in fear of our own kids. If we see they have a fascination, we have to keep an eye on them.

"We can't even buy a toy gun. We cannot do that anymore because we don't know what the kids will do. The world is changing, we have got to be careful.

"You seem to be fascinated with instruments like these and in these times they must be taken seriously."

He then sentenced Perinchief to two years imprisonment with three years probation to follow concurrently.

"You better take this chance to do something properly with it. If I see you around here for this thing you will get the full weight," Mr. Justice Greaves added.