Man, 72, who shot raider dead jailed for having a gun
A PENSIONER who shot dead a burglar at his caravan home was jailed for 10 months yesterday for illegally possessing a gun.
Fearing for his life, Reuben Gregory, 72, blasted Wayne Digby with the double-barrelled gun as he and another thief tried to break through the caravan door.
Digby, 48, suffered fatal wounds and bled to death a short distance away.
Gregory told a policeman at the scene: “I’m the one that did it, mate.”
Armed with a machete, hammer and crude Molotov cocktail, Digby and Anthony Hearn, also 48, planned to rob Gregory and his sister Cathy.
Digby and Hearn were also carrying bolt cutters, cable ties and flammable liquid.
Gregory and his sister, who is in her 50s, were rumoured to be rich and their caravan, in woods at Colnbrook, near Heathrow, had been raided before.
Gregory was arrested on suspicion of murder after the nighttime shooting last June.
Crown lawyers later ruled out murder or manslaughter charges, saying he acted to defend himself and his sister.
But Gregory was charged with illegal possession of the 12-gauge shotgun he used to kill Digby.
He admitted the offence and appeared at Reading Crown Court for sentencing.
As he was led to the cells, members of the Gregory and Digby families briefly clashed.
They were split up, with Gregory’s relatives shouting: “He shouldn’t have been there.”
Gregory had armed himself with the shotgun after a previous break-in during the 1980s.
His mother Rosie was so traumatised by the burglary she died shortly afterwards, the court heard.
Gregory tried to get a certificate for a gun but police rejected him, saying a caravan was not a secure place to store it.
But Gregory held on to his gun and kept it loaded at all times “for protection”.
After the shooting, Gregory told how he had been sleeping when the break-in began. He said: “I woke up and Cathy was screaming her head off.
“I looked over and there was a person’s arm through the bottom of the caravan door.
“He was holding a knife and thrusting it back and forth.
“I poked my shotgun through a hole in the door. It was all quiet. I held it there for as long as I dared, then I pulled the trigger.”
The pensioner added: “I only wanted to scare him away. That’s all I wanted to do.
“Police said he must have been crouching in front of the door. I’m really sorry he died.”
Judge Paul Dugdale told him the gun “was kept by you for selfdefence, which will never be a reason for owning a shotgun in this country”.