MAN ‘SHOT NEIGHBOUR IN GARDEN’
A MAN shot a neighbour in the stomach with an air rifle in a scene a judge likened to the “Wild West”.
Jason Cook was in the bushes overlooking a Swansea garden when he took aim at his victim and pulled the trigger.
The pellet is still lodged in Jason Osborne’s abdomen, some 10 months after the incident.
Swansea Crown Court heard the catalyst for the shooting was a dispute about the theft of a wallet.
Dyfed Thomas, prosecuting, said shortly before midday on March 13 last year Mr Osborne was in his flat in Lon Sawdde in Morriston when he heard shots being fired, and glass breaking.
When he went outside to investigate he saw 47-year-old Cook, a man he knew and who lived nearby, standing in bushes beyond the garden wall, pointing a rifle at him.
The court heard Mr Osborne then heard a loud bang and felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and realised he had been shot.
He then heard another “bang and whistling noise” as a further pellet was apparently fired, but this shot seemingly missed him.
Mr Thomas said the victim and his friend Benjamin Williams fled the property - as did council workmen who were fitting windows at the flat.
The prosecutor said Mr Osborne then apparently consumed a quantity of alcohol, because when he reported the matter some hours later to a police officer on Oxford Street he appeared intoxicated - Mr Thomas called this a “rather strange aspect of the case”.
Mr Osborne was subsequently taken to Morriston Hospital where staff found a small wound on his abdomen. The pellet remains in his stomach to this day.
Cook was arrested the following day, and police recovered a Weihrauch HW 80K air rifle from his bedroom.
Cook, of Heol Cefni, Morriston, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of a fireman with intent to cause fear of violence, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
The court heard he has previous convictions for possession of heroin, attempted robbery, conspiracy to defraud, aggravated burglary, and possession of an imitation firearm.
David Singh, for Cook, said his client had battled addiction to controlled drugs for many years.
He said the defendant accepted he should not have behaved in the way he had, and recognised that courts treat offences involving firearms, including air weapons, seriously.
Judge Geraint Walters said he could not understand why a man of Cook’s age should want to own an air rifle.
He told Cook he had been “playing out some sort of Wild West scene” on the day in question, and his behaviour had been irrational and out of all proportion to whatever had triggered the incident.
He added that he thought Cook had been playing “cat and mouse” with the authorities, denying the incident to the police and only entering guilty pleas on the day of his trial when he had a chance to see which witnesses had come to court to give evidence.
Cook was sentenced to 12 months for the firearm offence and six months for assault, the sentences to run concurrently, making a total sentence of 12 months.
Sending him down, the judge said: “People have got to learn that if they behave in this outrageous way, then a custodial sentence will follow.”
Cook shouted from the dock that he had only intended to “frighten” Osborne.