Mugger caught with homemade wooden weapon covered in nails

Rafael-Samuel Mirauta, 28, was found with the fearsome DIY baton – created out of a newel post and studded with nails.

The defendant was seen cycling with it outside a block of flats in Aberdeen sparking a large police manhunt.

Several members of the public reported seeing Mirauta at around 2pm on April 12, 2025 before police eventually found him and the weapon inside a property.

Another male was unconscious inside the flat after taking a drug overdose, a court heard.

Prosecutors said a 32cm long piece of wood had multiple sharp nails protruding out of it and was wrapped in a bike chain.

After it was recovered from his living room table, he told cops: "Really sorry, I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, just being stoned and stupid with that thing’.”

After sentencing, the Crown Office released an image showing the homemade weapon.

Describing it, Sheriff Morag McLaughlan said: “It is absolutely terrifying.''

Mirauta admitted two charges of having an offensive weapon, one of breaching bail, resisting arrest and of behaving in a threatening and aggressive manner.

He was sentenced to a Community Payback Order with two years of supervision and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

The additional charges related to a later breach of curfew from his initial bail, carrying a sharpened piece of plastic adapted to be used as a knife, resisting arrest and acting in an aggressive manner.

Referring to the homemade weapon, his defence agent, Neil McRobert, told the court there was "no suggestion he was doing anything with it, other than carrying it about.”

Mirauta was previously jailed in 2022 for mugging someone with a screwdriver and also stealing charity tins during a Christmas Day raid at a city centre supermarket.

He blamed his offending on his drug use and addiction.