Gun rabbit, gun
Man shoots at neighbour as she tries to retrieve her pet
A TERRIFIED woman feared for her life when a neighbour “shot at her” as she tried to fetch her pet rabbit Oreo from his garden.
Susan Davis, 49, claimed she was confronted by Paul Booth, 52, after chasing Oreo through a gap in the fence.
She said he shouted at her to “get out of my f***ing garden” then fired his gaspowered air pistol towards her. Susan, said: “I’d just ducked out of the way because the rabbit moved. He could’ve killed me.”
Jobless Booth, a member of a shooting club, was arrested after Susan showed police pictures she had taken previously as he cleaned the gun in his garden.
The civil servant, of Manchester, said she had knocked three times on Booth’s door and tried his back gate before going through a broken section of fence to retrieve Oreo. She said: “He appeared in the conservatory and said, ‘What the f*** are you doing in my garden?’ “So I explained I was trying to get the rabbit. I said I’d be two minutes, but he went in, came back out and said, ‘If you don’t get out my f***ing garden I’m going to get a firearm’. I had my back to him and my partner was behind the fence, but he came out behind me and opened fire.”
Booth’s lawyer Humayun Khan at Manchester magistrates court said there had been no pellets in the gun and “he didn’t mean to cause anybody harm.” He said there had been friction between the neighbours for 10 years.
Booth denies firing at Susan but admitted threatening behaviour and got 10 weeks’ jail, suspended for 12 months.