Cowboy fan pointed replica gun at heating engineer's head after laminate floor advice

Gerry Coyne had only visited cowboy fan William Duff's house to fix the heating, but when he told the occupant that he'd have to take up the laminate flooring, Duff pointed a Colt pistol at his head and said: "Mr Colt says no." What Gerry didn’t know was that the revolver – thought to have been a Colt SAA, known as “the gun that won the West” – was a harmless replica. He fled the house in Denny, Stirlingshire, and called the police, prompting a full-scale armed response.

But like many of the cowboys he grew up idolising, Duff ended up on the wrong side of a sheriff last week. And he was warned he could face jail after he admitted causing a breach of the peace, brandishing an imitation firearm and placing Gerry in a state of fear and alarm. Falkirk sheriff William Gallacher branded Duff “a drunken, stupid cowboy”. Friends say helping his projectionist dad and grandad changed the reels of classic westerns at the former Cinema De-Luxe in Denny fuelled Duff’s obsession with the genre. He turned one room at the home he shares with wife into a shrine to his cowboy heroes.



Gerry, 52, had arrived at Duff’s home to assess it for a central heating upgrade. He said: “I was just going about my daily business, doing my job. I was having a pleasant conversation with his wife and advised them about having to lift the laminate flooring. Then Mr Duff, who admitted he had been drinking at the time of the incident, appeared in the kitchen saying, ‘Who is lifting the effing floor?’ He started to get right up in my face and his wife ushered him away. I went with her to do the survey. I went into an upstairs room and here is this character sitting pointing a gun at me and saying, ‘Mr Colt says No.’

“I said, ‘You better put that gun down.’ He did and it clunked off the table, it sounded like it was metal. I just saw this maniac pointing a gun – I didn’t know it was a dummy. I went straight out the door and phoned my boss, who thought I was joking. Within 10 minutes the police arrived – a full armed response, nine police cars and two vans.” Gerry said he was terrified and he had trouble sleeping for weeks after the incident. His doctor eventually sent him for counselling. Sheriff Gallacher told Duff: “Your behaviour was both shocking and disgraceful.” He deferred sentence for background reports until June 12 and warned Duff: “One option is sending you to prison.”