‘Sometimes I wish I hadn’t survived’
MAN HAS PELLETS IN BODY FROM SHOOTING IN 2007
AFTER being blasted with a shotgun on his own doorstep, Joe Clarke should feel lucky to be alive.
But the shooting victim has today revealed how the gun attack he survived almost 15 years ago is now slowly killing him.
Joe was a fit and healthy dad-oftwo with a lucrative oil rig career when his life was turned upside down by a knock on the door in 2007.
Finding himself faced with the barrel of a sawn-off shotgun on the doorstep of his Consett home, Joe turned and tried to run for his life.
But he was blasted in the back with around 150 pellets, which became embedded in his back, neck and head and penetrated vital organs.
Miraculously Joe survived the attack, but medics said it would be too dangerous to operate and remove the shrapnel, including two pieces wedged in his heart.
And today he has revealed the devastating impact the gun wounds have had on his health, and how they could still take his life.
The 43-year-old said: “I just can’t believe my life has ended up like this. It’s just a constant struggle.
“It’s killing us slowly. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t survived. They took the life that I had. They have taken everything.”
Joe was shot at his home on Fairways in Consett, in December 2007.
Despite having run-ins with the police in the past, Joe cooperated with the investigation in the hope that justice would be done. But he was left devastated when the case against five people accused of plotting his murder collapsed after blunders by detectives from Durham Constabulary.
And as he came to terms with the fact that those behind the shooting would walk free, Joe was also living with the devastating physical effects of the gun attack.
Doctors said the shooting could have shortened his life expectancy and he would have to live with the pellets inside him for the rest of his life.
In 2012, Joe told The Chronicle he had fled his home town as he no longer felt safe in Consett.
And he started a new life elsewhere in the North East, without even telling members of his family where he had gone.
But following a number of family bereavements Joe decided to return to Consett and is now living in the house where he was shot once again.
“I just thought, ‘I don’t want to keep running away,’” he said. “I just want a quiet life now. That’s all I have ever wanted.”
Joe says he now suffers arthritis caused by the shooting.
He has undergone 20 operations and needs regular X-rays to check the pellets inside him have not moved to more dangerous positions.
Joe also needs treatment when the pellets become infected regularly.
He said: “I have still them all in me. I have just got to live with them.”
The injuries meant Joe could not return to his offshore job.
But he has now found work as a safety supervisor teaching young people.
“All my teenage years I had my head down grafting, but I lost my job after this,” he said.
“I had to do something else. It’s taken more than 10 years, but eventually, after 20 or 30 operations, I’m back on my feet.
“I am fighting it every day because I have got two kids. I’ll fight this for as long as I can.”
A spokeswoman for Durham Constabulary said: “There is currently no active investigation into this case. However, we will always consider any new information which is brought to our attention.”