Man discharged after shooting wife

A Queenstown man who shot his wife while preparing for duckshooting has been discharged without conviction.

The man, whose name is suppressed, appeared before Judge Bernadette Farnan in the Queenstown District Court yesterday.

He pleaded guilty on May 15 to carelessly using a firearm on April 10. The man - who held a firearms licence - decided to ‘‘re-familiarise himself’’ with the gun and loaded it and believed he had unloaded it before the gun went off in the couple’s garage.

Unbeknown to him, his wife was standing ‘‘in the doorway area’’ about 2 metres away and was shot in the abdomen and elbow.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Grant Gerken argued against the discharge, saying the man breached three rules of the firearms code including loading a firearm only when ready to fire it, treating every gun as loaded and pointing it in a safe direction.

The police took issue with the gravity of the offence being treated as low by defence counsel, Louise Denton.

Denton said the way the man handled the gun was to the ‘‘best of his knowledge’’ and it was ’’a moment of carelessness’’. ‘‘He did believe it was empty.’’ Both the man and his wife had suffered the consequences already and any further punishment was not necessary, she said.

Despite potential for a ‘‘catastrophic outcome’’ there was no need for the couple to have the stigma of a conviction, Farnan said.

She ordered the man to pay a $1000 donation to St John and court costs of $130.