A drunk who brandished a replica handgun in a packed bar has been jailed for 15 months.

Lithuanian Aleksej Mironov held the gun aloft as he danced unsteadily during a live music night at The Druids Arms in Maidstone.

At one stage he "jokingly" placed the imitation firearm to the head of his friend, to the horror of other customers enjoying the evening's entertainment in September.

Maidstone Crown Court heard Mironov was waving the black BB gun in one hand while holding his drink in the other.

The weapon was spotted by band members and staff, and together they ushered people out of the bar without panic, and with what the judge described as "great courage", while police were called.

Mironov, of White Willow Close, Willesborough, Ashford, admitted possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause another to believe unlawful violence would be used.

Jailing the 28-year-old, who came to the UK about five years ago, Judge Julian Smith said while his behaviour had been intimidating and frightening, it was borne out of stupidity rather than an intention to cause terror.

"It must have been a truly frightening experience for those who saw him with what was a very convincing replica, and the holding of it to his friend's head, although a jest, must have indeed been shocking."

The judge continued: "These are serious offences; it is well understood that firearms are something feared, and rightly so, by members of the public and to see an apparently real firearm in the hands of a drunk, barely in control individual, must have been frightening indeed."

The court heard Mironov's friend was at one stage seen trying to force him to put the BB gun back in his bag.

Tom Stern, defending, said the gun had been bought by Mironov about a year earlier while he was living in Maidstone and was used "for entertainment, sitting in his back garden shooting bottles".

He added that there was no sinister motive for him having the gun that day, other than simply using one of the two bags he habitually carried around with him and in which the gun was kept.

Mr Stern accepted that Mironov could have returned home when he spotted the gun as he bought his train ticket to Maidstone.

"He was grossly stupid, to put it mildly," he added.

Mironov, who studied landscape design to degree level in Russia and has worked since coming to the UK, was also ordered to pay a court charge of £900.