Okay, you’ve read the headline. A man has been sentenced to four months in prison after being arrested by Warwickshire Police for walking down a city centre street with a replica of The Legend of Zelda’s Master Sword.
Anthony Bray of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was sentenced after being charged with “possession of a knife in a public place,” according to a bulletin from the British Constabulary (that’s slang for police if you’re not from the UK).
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This is equivalent to the police approaching Bray after he was spotted on CCTV on June 8 on a street in Nuneaton carrying a “small replica” of the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda, which the press release said had a blade of six inches long.
Bray claimed he bought the sword online as a toy. However, police argued that “although the sword’s intended use was as a weapon, it was in fact a sharp object that could be used as a weapon and might have put others in fear of it being used against them.”
While Bray admitted that the Master Sword “could be seen as a threat by others,” he also told officers he would not use it as a weapon. In addition to the four-month prison sentence, he must also pay a victim surcharge of £154 (about $196).
Although it should be emphasized that We at iGamesNews are obviously not lawyers or crime prevention experts.a punishment that at first glance seems a bit harsh considering it was just a toy sword, assuming that’s all Bray did and he wasn’t violating some existing order against him.
Our own Alex Donaldson, who is well known for owning a large collection of video game-related items, also owns a replica of the Master Sword and claims that the blade, while longer than the three inches that seem to be the biggest sticking point in British law, is not sharper. Th is is largely assuming, though, that Bray’s sword is somehow not different.
In any case, explaining the measures taken, Sergeant Spelman of Warwickshire Police’s Patrol Investigations Unit said: “We have a zero tolerance policy for bladed items in public places and Bray broke that rule. It is possible to find toys that are not six-inch blades. You probably wouldn’t walk down the street with them in front of you. If Bray had had a little more self-awareness, he could have avoided contact with us altogether.”
So maybe don’t plan on hosting an open-air, role-playing-focused Nintendo convention in Nuneaton town centre anytime soon.