The partner of Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema has decided he will accept a sentence of 40 hours community service for the illegal possession of a hand gun after all, and will not fight out the issue in court.

Film producer Robert Oey had taken the gun, a film prop which had been disabled, to his home, where it was found by the couple’s 15-year-old son. In December he was given the sentence at a closed court session.

Oey first said he would fight against the sentence and the case should have been heard on Wednesday. However, after a period of reflection, Oey has decided not to go ahead with the appeal, his lawyer Peter Plasman has told reporters.

The boy was picked up by police last summer after neighbours reported he and a friend were vandalising an abandoned houseboat. He threw the gun away when he ran off.

The case blew up when the Telegraaf newspaper reported on what it called ‘an armed break-in’ in August, a month after the event took place. Halsema then wrote an open letter defending her son but said that he had broken the law and had to face the consequences.

The boy was referred to the juvenile petty crime unit Halt.

Oey later admitted in an interview with the NRC that the gun, said to be an alarm pistol, was his and that he had taken it home without his wife’s knowledge.