Jailed for 8 years, gun seller who shot wife dead
The family of a corporate lawyer killed when her husband blasted her with a shotgun accused him of ‘hiding behind the law’ as he was jailed for eight years yesterday.
Silke Hartshorne-Jones, 42, was shot twice as she lay in bed.
When husband peter, 52, was urged by one of their then eight-year-old twin sons to dial 999, he asked for the police instead of an ambulance.
the registered gun dealer was jailed for life and told he would serve a minimum of eight years after he admitted manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
Ipswich crown court heard he had a history of depression and locked himself in a bedroom after the first lockdown began last year, fearing he would contract covid-19.
Mrs Hartshorne-Jones’s brother, Jens Lutschewicz, said in a victim impact statement: ‘It really enrages and nauseates me to suggest his responsibility was diminished. It makes a mockery of the case. We hear lawyers and psychologists defending the manipulative, irresponsible and cowardly person who hides himself behind the law.’ Judge Martyn Levett said the defendant had shot his ‘entirely blameless victim’ after becoming ‘obsessed and focused’ on himself, wrongly believing he had a viral infection while refusing to take medication for anxiety.
the judge said Hartshorne-Jones had a medium level of culpability due to his medical condition. the sentence will be served in a secure psychiatric unit until he is judged well enough to go to prison.
the case raised questions about how Hartshorne-Jones was able to hold a licence allowing him to own and deal in shotguns.
He said on his application for a licence in 2000 that he had no mental health issues, and slipped through the net again in 2010 when he was granted a firearms dealer certificate. In fact, he had been diagnosed with depression in 1996 and was prescribed anti-depressants in 2009.
police were called to the Hartshorne-Jones’s £600,000 17th century farmhouse in Barham, near Ipswich, just before 5am on May 3 last year.
Hartshorne-Jones made the 999 call after one of his sons was woken up by the commotion and found him downstairs making breakfast.
the businessman, who also ran a catering consultancy firm, walked outside to meet armed police who arrived 15 minutes later. He lay down on the driveway as his sons stood nearby.
German-born Mrs Hartshorne-Jones was found bleeding heavily from wounds to the chest and arm. police and paramedics fought to save her but she was pronounced dead at Ipswich Hospital.
detective chief Inspector Karl Nightingale, from Suffolk police, said the force had been ‘fully compliant’ with national gun licensing guidelines but Hartshorne-Jones had used ‘deceit and lies’ to get his licence.