Gun-free UK: Lecturer is sacked over student's plastic gun A lecturer who allowed a student to bring a plastic toy rifle into a college for use in a photography project has been sacked for breaching health and safety regulations. Richard Browning, 40, from Doncaster, was dismissed as a photography teacher at Doncaster College in South Yorkshire last Monday. The student, a 16-year-old girl, had brought a two-foot green and black rifle to the college last November to photograph it for her HND course. Mr Browning's dismissal comes days after the Government said it would ban replica guns in public. The Home Office has confirmed this will cover anything looking like a firearm, not just fake weapons capable of conversion to live ammunition. Mel Battersby of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, the union representing Mr Browning, said it had been the student's decision to use a toy gun as the subject of her project. Mr Browning had checked that it was a toy before allowing the photo session to go ahead. Regards, Bob... --------------------------------------------------- "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
