A FATHER who admitted shooting his neighbour with a modified air rifle while taking pot-shots out of his window has been jailed for six months.

Sean Davis was firing his .22-calibre air rifle out of his window in Purton on Saturday, January 3, when he struck his neighbour in the back, causing severe injuries, hiding the rifle in a communal bin after the incident before police arrived.

Davis pleaded guilty at Swindon Crown Court to causing actual bodily harm and possessing a firearm when prohibited as he had it within five years of release from a jail sentence.

The 25-year-old, previously of Palamino Close, Purton, but now living in Steele Close, Devizes, initially pleaded not guilty to the charge of possession but after advice from his new counsel, Darren Burleigh, changed his plea and avoided a trial.

In a victim impact statement, read by Kerry Barker, prosecuting, the neighbour shot by Davis said he was emotionally scarred by the incident.

“When I was shot I was in shock,” she said. “I was very nervous of people, jumpy about what they would do. I’ve always loved living here but it’s made me feel differently about it.

“I just wanted Sean to stop shooting through the window. I was lucky he did not shoot me in the spine.”

Mr Burleigh said Davis had accepted his behaviour was dangerous and had expressed remorse at injuring his neighbour.

“He has the appropriate level of remorse and shame and knows he acted in the most inappropriate manner,” he said.

“He accepts that he was drunk and by his own admission, he shot in an area where the person was, he accepts that it was dangerous. He believed it ricocheted at the time but now accepts this was not the case.

“He is a simple person and has his difficulties remembering and retaining information. Being drunk, coupled with his specific learning difficulties, he did not realise that having this particular idea would cause him to have fallen foul of the law.”

Mr Burleigh added there was no malice behind the shooting and called it a “prankster act” that went wrong due to his client’s intoxication.

He said: “The gun was a plaything to him, it was a prankster act, and it was utterly stupid, foolish and he had made the full and frank admission that he can’t say it went off accidentally. He didn’t mean to do it.”

Mr Burleigh asked that Davis’ baby daughter, limited financial means and learning difficulties be taken into account when passing sentence.

Sentencing Davis to six months imprisonment, Judge Peter Blair QC, said: “The assault charge was a serious offence and what you did was wrong.

"The fact that you tried to cover it up is also unacceptable, for a stupid prank. You caused great pain and fear to the man you struck.

“I will give you partial credit for not being aware of the limitations placed on you and the learning difficulties you have and that comes in the form of a 30 per cent discount on the sentence but that is all.

“The conclusion I have reached is that I can’t justify that people should be allowed to behave like this in such a dangerous manner.

"You were utterly reckless. Therefore I’m forced to the position that you must serve a sentence.”

Davis was sentenced to six months to causing actual bodily harm and three and a half months for possession of a firearm, to run concurrently.