Boy of one fights for life after he’s shot in the head with an air rif le
A BOY aged one was fighting for his life last night after being shot in the head with an air rifle pellet.
Harry Studley, who medics fear may have suffered brain damage, is in a coma after the pellet ricocheted off a window and embedded itself into his brain.
Yesterday police charged two people they arrested on Friday evening shortly after Harry was taken to Bristol Children’s Hospital.
Jordan Walters, 24, and Emma Jane Horseman, 23, were charged with grievous bodily harm and will appear in Bristol Magistrates Court today. Neither is related to the boy.
Friends of Harry’s family described how his parents had taken him to tea at a flat in Bristol on Friday evening.
Harry’s parents Amy Allen and Edward Studley, who are 21 and 22 respectively, live in the same block of flats as the arrested couple and said they were ‘concentrating our focus on our son Harry’s recovery’.
In a statement issued through the police they said: ‘We would like to thank everyone for their continuing support at this time.
‘Harry is still very poorly and we would reiterate that our request for privacy be respected as we and our family come to terms with what has happened.’
A friend who has known the family for 21 years, and did not wish to be named, said: ‘We are all devastated. They are a lovely family. I have known the mother since she was a baby and he was a lovely little boy.
‘The nan told me that the gun went off, the pellet then hit the window and went back into the boy’s head.’ She added: ‘The pellet has gone into his brain and they have had to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure from the swelling.
‘The pellet has embedded in his brain next to his main artery and they couldn’t remove it. There is already brain damage and they have had to put him in an emergency coma.’
Emergency crews were called to a flat in Bristol’s Hartcliffe district, with neighbours reportedly saying they heard the baby ‘ screaming and screaming’.
Police said the boy’s family were continuing to be given ‘all the help and support they need’.
Detective Inspector Jonathan Deane, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: ‘ We believe the child received the severe injury from one pellet discharged from an air weapon.
‘ Our focus is very much on unravelling the full circumstances leading up to this tragedy.
‘We’re not looking for anyone else in connection with what happened and we are treating this as a potentially negligent act.’
A police spokesman said Harry remained in a critical condition in Bristol Children’s Hospital with a serious head injury.
Air rifles are legal but have been responsible for a series of injuries and deaths in recent years.
Ben Wragge, 13, from Thurston, Suffolk, died in May from a single air gun pellet to the neck. Two of his friends were arrested.
Rhys Johnson, ten, was accidentally shot dead by a 12-year- old friend with an airgun in September 2009 in Llansamlet, Swansea. And
‘Screaming and screaming’
Danny Marsh, 17, was shot dead by an airgun in November 2007 while playing in a garden shed with two friends in Newport, South Wales.
Under UK legislation anyone over 18 can buy an air rifle if it delivers less than 16.2 joules of energy.
But studies have shown that air gun safety cannot be judged on the power of the weapon alone. Research from Abertay University in Dundee found ammunition type and the angle pellets struck a target were also factors in how lethal the rifles can be.