Family huddle in terror as neighbour fires shots
A terror-stricken family hid as their drunk and furious neighbour took pot shots at their home and car with a highcalibre rifle.
The incident in the tiny Hauraki Plains farming community of Kaihere prompted the scrambling of the Waikato Armed Offenders Squad to the scene, and left the victims of Dwayne Oswald Stubbings potentially permanently traumatised.
Stubbings, 38, was sentenced to nine months of home detention in the Hamilton District Court yesterday on charges of discharging a firearm – namely a .308 rifle – with reckless disregard for the safety of others, intentional damage resulting in danger to life, and commission of a crime with a firearm.
The April 12 incident was the culmination of a period of bad blood between Stubbings and his neighbours.
Both families were both in the employ of a dairy management firm.
The origins of the dispute between them have been suppressed by the court.
At 5.30pm that day a mother and four children aged between 10 and 16 years old were at home in the Torehape Rd house that was to become the target for Stubbings’ bullets.
Stubbings was out on the deck of his neighbouring home, and it was from there that he fired three rounds at the victims’ house.
One of the rounds passed through an exterior wall of a semi-detached sleepout and lodged itself into the back of a TV set.
Another round hit a Ford Laser parked next to the house, smashing the rear windscreen and rear passenger window.
At this point the household being targeted still had no idea that someone was shooting at them.
The father arrived home and he, his wife and the two youngest children hopped into his Ford Explorer with the intention of driving to Ngatea to get dinner.
As they reversed down their driveway, Stubbings fired a further three rounds at them. The penny dropped that their lives were in danger.
They drove the car back to where it was initially parked, turned it off and took cover in the foot wells, from where they called the police.
While they huddled in terror, the father accidentally pushed the brake pedal and the brake lights on the car lit up.
It was at that moment that Stubbings fired another shot at their property.
Not long after the squad arrived and safely shepherded the family out of the car and to safety.
Stubbings fled the scene. He later handed himself in at the Tauranga Police station.
In court yesterday, the mother of the family Stubbings shot at told of how they had to relocate and change jobs following the incident.
Her children were still jumpy whenever they heard loud noises and her 11-year-old son could not go to the toilet or shower alone out of fear.
She had been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.
‘‘I struggle to sleep and to this day when I close my eyes I still hear the screams of my children that night.
‘‘I am truly thankful I still have my children but feel that it is just sheer luck and truly believe Dwayne intended to kill ... and think it was only his drinking that made his aim off.’’