MILITARY police who raided a former Royal Marine's home found his seven-year-old son playing with live bullets, a court heard yesterday.

Recently retired corporal Stephen Hopkins had a rocket casing, smoke grenade, thunderflashes, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at his home when it was searched.

Hopkins, 36, escaped a prison sentence after Exeter Crown Court heard he had taken home some of the ammunition when he was a weapons trainer because cutbacks had reduced supplies and he needed the bullets for his men to use on future exercises.

The court was told that most of the ammunition was stolen while Hopkins was an instructor at the Royal Marine base at Arbroath and he had intended to return the 160 rounds to colleagues.

Hopkins, of Marpool Hill, Exmouth, Devon, was a weapons instructor at Prince Edward's former training camp at Lympstone, near Exeter, and the base at Arbroath.

He admitted stealing weaponry from the Ministry of Defence and having ammunition without a firearms certificate. He was ordered to do 180 hours' community service.

Mr Stephen Dent, prosecuting, said police were called to Hopkins's home after a social worker spotted ammunition lying around and alerted the authorities.

They discovered a Schumerly rocket flare, a used high-explosive anti-tank rocket, seven thunderflashes, magazines for an armalite and an SA 80 rifle, and a total of 289 rounds of live 5.5 mm and 9mm ammunition.

Mr Dent said: ``One of the officers who conducted the search gave a rather disturbing description of entering the property and seeing a number of items of live ammunition on the floor in the hallway. He saw the defendant's seven-year-old son Warren playing with items. The boy picked one up and the officer took it from him.

``Not surprisingly, the Royal Marines have a very strict code for controlling ammunition and pyrotechnics.

``All items must be signed out and, when they come back from the range, any unused rounds and spent cartridge cases should be signed back in.''

Mr Dent said Hopkins had taken some of the ammunition with him when he moved from the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone to Arbroath while he was still serving with the Marines and had brought even more back.

He said all Marine bases had honesty boxes in which ammunition, which had been accidentally removed, could be returned but Hopkins did not use them.

Mr David Steele, defending, said Hopkins had picked up the items during a blameless 14-year career in the Marines and had no intention of selling the ammunition or passing it on to anyone connected with crime or terrorism.

He said: ``For the most part, this is the result of sloppy soldiering. He was an instructor who knew the rules but you can imagine the amount of ammunition and pyrotechnics that went through his hands and it is perhaps inevitable that on occasions items escaped the rules.

``The only items he obtained deliberately were the rounds of 9mm ammunition. Because of the cutbacks, it was very difficult to get hold of and since it was used extensively in training, so having obtained it, he held on to it for use in future exercises to boost such stocks as he could obtain from proper means.

``It was always his intention to find a way of returning it to his colleagues at Arbroath to make sure they had enough for training exercises.''

Mr Steele said that Hopkins was having difficulty in adapting to civilian life and had money and marriage problems and this case represented the low point in his life.

Judge Graham Hume Jones said: ``It appears the items were not stolen with any view to gain and I accept they were not acquired with any sinister intent.''