SHOT AT POINT BLANK RANGE
Trial begins over teenager’s tragic death in back of car after night drinking with friends:
A night out drinking with friends ended in tragedy when a teenager was shot dead at point blank range.
Peter Colwell was sitting in the back of a Land Rover Discovery vehicle in the car park of the Ship Inn at Llanbedrog near Pwllheli on Saturday, February 4, 2017.
He died when a semi-automatic shotgun was fired. Two of the men he was with that night, Ben Andrew Wilson and Benjamin George Fitzsimons, are charged with gross negligence manslaughter and are standing trial at Caernarfon Crown Court.
Wilson, 28, now of Ely, Cambridgeshire, admitted having a loaded shotgun in a public place.
Benjamin Fitzsimons, 22, and his brother Michael, 25, both of Nanhoron, Pwllheli, and Harry Robert Butler, 23, of Llaniestyn, Pwllheli, deny possessing a loaded shotgun in public places
Outlining the prosecution case to the jury at the start of the trial prosecuting counsel Patrick Harrington QC said the 18-year-old gamekeeper from Capel Uchaf near Clynnog Fawr was in the vehicle with the other men waiting for Wilson, the vehicle owner, to finish going to the toilet. As they waited the shotgun, also owned by Wilson, was pointed into the rear of the vehicle by the front seat passenger, Benjamin Fitzsimmons.
Mr Harrington said: “Just after midnight on February 5 Peter Colwell was shot dead as he sat in the middle back seat of a Land Rover Discovery.
“The weapon that killed him was a semi-automatic shotgun and was discharged by Ben Fitzsimons. He had been sitting in the front passenger seat of the vehicle with the gun propped up to his right with the muzzle facing backwards.
“The gun was owned by Ben Wilson. He wasn’t in the car at the time. He was in the car park.”
Mr Harrington said the killing was neither deliberate nor malicious. But a young man died as the result of the “cavalier disregard of the fundamental rules of gun safety by Ben Wilson and Ben Fitzsimons.”
The muzzle shouldn’t have been pointing at the teenager he added.
The jury heard during the trial a witness will outline his concern to Ben Wilson’s attitude to gun safety.
Mr Harrington said Adam Cook will suggest Wilson had a “casual attitude” towards handling weapons and the way they were carried in vehicles.
Mr Harrington told the jury Ben Fitzsimons, Wilson, Butler and Peter Colwell were all gamekeepers on the large Boduan Estate near Pwllheli. Wilson lived at the time close to his employer who had a state-of-the-art gun store.
The prosecutor said he had taken a gun from the store during the morning and it would have been simple for Wilson to store the gun there after he finished work on the fateful day.
During their night out in Abersoch and Llanbedrog the shotgun was left in view of passers by. There were no complaints about the group’s behaviour in either the St Tudwal’s Hotel, Abersoch, or the Ship. They were said to have bought several rounds of drinks at both pubs.
After the Ship closed at midnight CCTV footage showed the group returning to the vehicle parked near the pub. After a short while it showed a flash as the gun went off.
Mr Harrington said the weapon had a safety catch which, when operational, stopped it being fired and pressure had to be applied on the trigger, too.
The trial, expected to last two or three weeks, continues.