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2002
GCN collected only a small proportion of
relevant media articles during this period
ENGLAND
BBC, 4 December
2002
The bodies of a man and
a woman were discovered, both with gunshot wounds to the head, at a
house in Billericay, Essex.
BBC, 2 December
2002
Police are questioning
two men after one man was killed and another seriously injured in a
shooting in Peckham, south London. The men were shot as
they were leaving a party.
BBC, 25 September 2002
A striking firefighter was
shot with an air rifle while he
was standing on a picket line in Gorton.
Ananova, 25 September 2002
A
72-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman,
have been arrested on suspicion of the possession and manufacture of
firearms in the Everton district of Liverpool.
Norfolk Eastern Daily
Press, 25 September 2002
A
man was described as being “lucky to be alive” after he was shot at
with an air rifle when he investigated an attack on his mother’s
car. One of the two pellets that hit him lodged in his heart. Two
men were jailed at Norwich Crown Court after the incident.
Derby Evening Telegraph, 11 September 2002
A binman was shot with an
air rifle while working
in Spondon. The council worker was shot in the arm and was taken to
Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. He was later released and police
arrested two youths who were detained for questioning.
The Sentinel
(Staffordshire), 7 September
2002
A
father of three was hit with an air rifle pellet for allegedly
“speeding” in his canal barge at Salt, near Stafford. The offender,
who was put on rehabilitation by magistrates said he did it “to
scare him and stop him going too fast past other boats”.
Herald Express (Devon), 3 September 2002
Robert Brock, a forklift driver, was waiting for a delivery at an
industrial estate near Bovey Tracey when he was hit by a volley of
shots from a high-powered air rifle. He was hit twice in the leg.
The shooter is believed to have hidden in a small copse.
Goole Today,
2 September 2002
Youths with air pistols
were probably responsible for
smashing eight panels of glass at the church in Swinefleet.
icBirmingham, 2 September 2002
An airgun was fired at a community centre in
Oscott where a Birmingham councillor was holding an advice surgery.
Keith Linnecor, supported by Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood, called for a
ban on the weapons.
Herald Express, 21 August 2002
Police in South Devon today repeated calls for
youngsters to stop ‘playing’ with ball bearing (BB) guns. The
latest warning comes after a Torquay boy almost lost an eye when he
was fired at. The 15 year old was taken to hospital after being
shot at twice from a distance of just two metres. Two sisters, in
their early teens, were also shot, one in the left knee and the
other behind her right eye.
A few weeks ago students sparked an armed police
operation in Shaldon when they were spotted with guns. They turned
out to be ball bearing-firing replicas.
In March, in Totnes, a young sniper shot a 12
year old boy in the face with a ball-bearing gun.
Yorkshire Post, 20 August 2002
A woman died
yesterday after being shot with an air pistol. Humberside
police
are treating the death as suspicious and are questioning a 26 year
old man.
Sunderland Echo, 19 August 2002
Toni Ellis, a mother from
Sulgrave,
Washington, spoke of fearing the worst when she heard her daughter
Shaunna had been shot. A 12-year-old boy had shot at her with a
BB
gun. Thankfully, Shaunna was not badly injured, although her
stomach was all red and bruised. Chief Inspector Jim Sexton of
Northumbria Police commented that “The consequences could have been
much more serious and we would urge parents not to allow children
access to guns such as these”.
Daily Telegraph,
17 August 2002
A man was fatally wounded in St. Werburghs,
Bristol, after shots had been fired
at unarmed officers. The police investigation revealed that the
dead man was also in possession of a reactivated pistol, one
designed to fire blanks but which had been altered to fire bullets.
An inquest jury ruled that police officers who shot Fosta Errol
Thomson acted lawfully (BBC, 25 November 2005).
17 August 2002
A man motoring in a narrow boat on the Trent and
Mersey Canal at Great Haywood, Staffordshire, was shot in the leg
with an air rifle after another boatman on a moored boat accused
him of going too fast. Police were notified and an arrest was made.
Ilkeston Advertiser,
8 August 2002
A housing worker came under fire while clearing
out an empty house. The Erewash Housing employee and a colleague escaped unhurt from the incident on
Friday. Police said that the incident could be linked with the
shooting of a two year old boy in a nearby park last month.
Surgeons removed a pellet from the toddler’s arm.
BBC,
26 July 2002
Coming home from
shopping in Moss Side,
Manchester, a 71 year old woman was hit in the back by a stray
bullet.
A 27 year old man
was returning home in Streatham,
south London, when he unwittingly drove straight into a gang gun
battle. He was hit many times and died close to his own
doorstep.
Ilkeston Advertiser
& Erewash Valley Weekly News, 25 July
2002
A shocked soldier saw his son in a busy Ilkeston
street, holding a gun. The 13 yr old had just brought it from a
Bath Street store. The black BB gun cost £3 and fires small plastic
pellets and is legal to own. The soldier said 'It's an exact
replica of a nine-millimetre I used to fire in the Army. It's very
realistic....this simply should never have been sold to him'.
A boy of two was shot as he stood on a slide in a
Cotmanhay park. The shooting took place at about 6pm on July 1yth
on the park off Beauvale Drive. The mother and toddler were alone
but about five youths were sitting on a wall nearby. They ran away
when they realised they had hit him. Surgeons at the Royal
Infirmary, Derby, removed an airgun
pellet from his right arm.
Manchester News, 4 July
2002
Pupils at Mossley
Hollins High School who were allowed to take pellet
guns into school for an end-of-time play indulged in a lengthy
"shoot-out" in which one boy was injured near his eye. Four teenage
pupils were suspended after the incident.
BBC, 1 July 2002
A
severely disabled man was shot in an air rifle attack in
Middlesbrough. The victim, Leslie Phillips, who was born deaf-blind
and without speech needed hospital treatment after being shot in
the stomach whilst walking back from his local newsagent. It was
believed that a gang of youths was responsible for the attack.
Yorkshire Post, 28
June 2002
Concerns were raised when
patients at a psychiatric unit in St. James’s Hospital, Leeds,
carried guns onto the hospital wards. Charges were brought
against one patient for allegedly carrying an
airgun
and firing pellets into the
wall of the ward kitchen.
In a second incident a patient was
carrying what turned out to be a replica handgun.
Police appealed for witnesses after a driver was
fired at by a man brandishing a gun in Bradford. The victim was
driving along Killinghall Road when a shot was fired at his car
chipping the windscreen.
A cashier at a sub post
office in East Bierley handed over £4,000 when threatened by three
masked robbers armed with a single barrelled shotgun.
Bury Times,
28 June 2002
A man was charged
with the murder of a man on a Bury housing estate in June 2002.
Gary Kelly was accused of killing Mr Satchell who died of gunshot
wounds to the chest.
Middlesbrough
Evening Gazette - Campaign,
28 June 2002
On Friday, 28 June, the Evening
Gazette ran a campaign to ‘Ban the Young Guns’ The article carried
gun incidents reported to the Gazette during the past two years,
from February 2000 when a pair of young offenders were charged with
firing at a train driver on the Middlesbrough to Darlington line, a
policeman and a group of teenage cyclists, to June 5
2002 when a ten year old boy was shot in the knee while playing in
sand dunes at Seaton Carew. Four youths, aged between 12 and 14,
were spotted running from the scene.
Other recent incidents were those of a
15-year-old boy, shot in the face with an airgun
pellet that narrowly
missed his eye, and a 12 year old boy struck by a pellet as he
walked by a forest on his way to Loftus Freebrough College.
The
Evening Gazette Campaign reads:
‘Dear Home Secretary, I support the call for a
ban on the possession of airguns by under 18 year olds, new laws to
license their sale and restricted access to ammunition’
Daily Mail,
26 June 2002
An American clergyman, Michael
Daggett from Swinton, was given a four-month jail sentence
for keeping a tiny antique double-barrel .22 Derringer gun hidden in
his bedroom. Police had also found five boxes of ammunition.
He told police he had the gun for protection. Possession of
handguns became illegal in 1997.
Huddersfield Examiner,
26 June 2002
An armed robber
stole £300 from a man outside Barclays Bank in Skelmanthorpe in the
early as of the morning as the victim withdrew cash from the bank
till.
25 June 2002
A masked gunman
shot four people when he fired into a busy pub in Leeds. The
landlord was left with a heel injury and a customer and two staff
suffered gunshot wounds.
Armed
police were put on alert after a gunman barricaded himself inside a
pub in a siege in a busy Sheffield suburb. The area was
cordoned off and talks led by a specially trained negotiator finally
resulted in the man emerging from the pub – he had been armed with a
plastic
replica weapon.
Daily Telegraph,
10 June
2002
A 12 year old boy
was shot in the chest by two teenagers as they robbed him of less
than £3 in pocket money. The pellet, from a powerful, gas-powered
airgun
fired at close range, was lodged inches from the boy's heart and
lungs. He is now recovering after surgery to remove the
pellet. The incident happened as the boy was walking along Bourne
Road in Colchester, Essex at about 8pm.
BBC News,
1 June 2002
Armed
police were patrolling
Bradford
on Saturday night, 1
June, after four bystanders were shot outside a nightclub. A 33
year old man and three teenagers were shot from a moving car in the
early hours of the morning.
BBC News,
1 June 2002
Residents have marched through Manchester in
protest at the level of gang violence in the city. The parents
of young men shot dead in south Manchester were among the 200
protesters. Thirteen people have been killed in the area in
three years, and there have been 20 shootings this year already.
“It is all about people coming together and agreeing on one subject
and saying that enough is enough” Michael McFarquhar, march organiser
Evening Advertiser,
31 May
2002
Armed police units staked out
a house for two hours after a 12-year-old was seen brandishing a
handgun in Calne. Police discovered he was carrying a
ball bearing gun.
Rochdale Observer,
28 May
2002
A man was shot dead in
Royton, Greater Manchester, as he desperately tried to flee
his killers. Neighbours had heard gunshots in the street.
8 May
2002
Alarm was sparked
in Watford after a 13yr old was taken to Watford General, then moved
to Middlesex Hospital, to have an air pistol pellet removed from his
face. He was shot as he played golf with a friend in Leggatts Way,
next to the Harebreaks Recreation Ground on Wednesday, 8 May. The incident prompted
call by Watford MP Claire Ward for an 'urgent review' of gun laws.
Home Office Minister Bob Ainsworth described air gun incidents as
'distressing and dangerous' and gave a guarantee he would not
'dismiss the concern'. Air pistols capable of firing
needle-point rounds are freely available over the counter - they do
not need to be licensed.
Daily Telegraph, 30 April 2002
When a group of 14-year-old boys were firing a
.22 air rifle at targets at the home of one of the boys on Teeside,
the boy aimed at his friend Matthew Sheffield. A pellet lodged in
Matthew’s brain and he died the following day. The boy is on trial
for manslaughter at Teesside Crown Court. (see
Evening Gazette, May 2001)
Manchester
Evening News, 18 April 2002
Daniel Dale, 18,
died as a result of a gunshot wound to the back which penetrated his
heart. The shooting took place in the Miles Platting area of
Manchester in July 2001. Two eighteen year olds have gone on trial at
Preston Crown Court accused of murder.
Yorkshire Post, 15 April 2002
An eleven year old
girl was shot in the leg after masked gunmen opened fire into the
living room of her home. The police believe the weapon to be a
small handgun.
Muswell Hill Journal, 11 April 2002
An armed stand-off took
place on Muswell Hill Broadway after police surrounded a man with a
gun – which turned out to be toy. Armed response units were called.
Police stated that ‘the incident caused a great deal of
inconvenience for the officers involved. Obviously it is not
advisable to be armed, even with a fake gun, as it can create alarm.
Derby Evening Telegraph, 5 April 2002
A
seventeen year old man lost the sight in one eye when shot in the
face in an air rifle attack. Paul Price was walking past a
greengrocer’s shop in Sussex Circus when he heard a noise and then
felt a sharp pain in his eye. There were no witnesses.
Yorkshire Post, 28 March 2002
A bus driver needed
surgery on his face following a shooting, the latest in a string of
attacks on bus drivers. The incident happened on a Monday night as
the driver, with a full load, was passing a group of teenagers. The
children were mimicking as if they had a gun and the next thing the
driver knew was that he was shot in the face by an
airgun bullet.
26 March 2002
A social worker was
shot in the foot with a pistol as he intervened in a brawl between
youngsters at a talent show at Northumberland Park School,
Tottenham, North London. He was taken to hospital but later
released - so far there have been no arrests.
Guardian,
26 March 2002
Judge Graham Boal
called for a ban on lighters looking like guns after hearing how a
19-year-old Londoner used one to rob two motorists of their cars.
Yorkshire Post,
19 March 2002
A double-decker bus
came under fire as it passed a group of teenagers standing on a
pavement in York. The bus was peppered with nearly 40 pellets from
a shotgun. No one was hurt.
Sunday
Mercury (E.
Midlands), 3 March 2002
Boy of 9 pulled a gun on
a classmate at a Midland School. Sources claim boy had stolen the gun
from his brother, a member of a gun club, and had smuggled it into
school.
Daily Telegraph, 5 February
2002
A
boy, aged 13, died after being accidentally shot in the chest by his
uncle during a family shooting trip. Scott Wadley was hit by a
single shot from the 12-bore shotgun as he helped his uncle shoot
rabbits on a country estate in Herefordshire.
The uncle, who has not been named, had treated his nephew to a day's
shooting at Pudleston Court estate in Docklow, near Leominster,
where he worked.
Cambridge
News,
17 January 2002
Ellis Reynolds, 19, a teenage motorist pulled out an
imitation
firearm and waved it at another driver after a row on a roundabout
near RAF Alconbury.
Daily Post, 2 January 2002
Three
men were shot in the reception area of a pub in Speke.
All three received injuries to their legs. Up to four men were
involved, and between four and six shots were discharged before they
escaped in a car. See
Personal Accounts.
Evening Standard,
1 January 2002
A
bullet fired during a party in Hackney hit and killed one man and
then passed through a partition wall and killed 29 year
old Wayne Mowatt in the adjoining room. Iain Davis was
given two life sentences after being found guilty of the murders and
a second man has been charged with the murders (BBC, 9
September 2004).
SCOTLAND
Evening Times, 18 September
2002
Speaking in support of the campaign for tighter controls on sales of
airguns, Lynn McFarlane from Motherwell described how her
15-year-old daughter was blinded in one eye by an airgun pellet.
Surgeons had saved Lisa’s right eye, but she still cannot see out
of it and her sight may never return.
Daily Record, 18 September
2002
An Edinburgh man who shot a boy with an
air rifle was jailed for 18
months. He had been upset at the noise the 13-year-old and his
friends were making. The victim still has a pellet lodged in his
leg.
Edinburgh Evening News, 16 September
2002
Armed police held a teenager at gun point after an incident in
Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh. The youth was seen holding a
handgun in view of the public. The weapon he was carrying turned
out to be a ball-bearing (BB) gun.
Times, 26 August 2002
A fireman was shot in the head with an
air rifle
while on his way to rescue a nine-year-old child who had fallen into
a gully in Hamilton. The pellet embedded itself in the fireman’s
skull and the fire crew had to be diverted away from rescuing the
child.
Edinburgh
Evening News,
24 August 2002
Clubbers who have
adopted imitation handguns as the latest fashion craze are risking
their lives if the trend continues, police have warned. Lothian and
Borders police revealed its armed response team has been called out
102 times in just four months – and claims many incidents have been
caused by young men handling replica guns in nightclub queues.
Times, 23 August 2002
In Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, a gang of teenagers
shot a six-year-old girl in the neck with a
pellet gun, leaving her
in agony. An hour earlier they had shot a pellet at the family dog.
Press and Journal, 30 July 2002
A man was shot in
the leg by an air rifle in a sniper-style attack in an Aberdeen
street. The police described the incident as a “dangerous attack
which could have had more serious consequences”
Edinburgh Evening News,
23 July 2002
In a second
incident within a week a man allegedly pointed what looked like a
black pistol at passers-by near Princes Street Gardens.
He and another man were arrested. The gun was a spring-loaded
air pistol
which fired yellow plastic pellets.
Edinburgh
Evening News, 13 July 2002
The paper reported a number
of incidents involving
imitation weapons. The first was in Princes
Street Gardens when a man was spotted brandishing what seemed to be
a powerful handgun. He and his friend were warned by police that
their own lives were in serious danger because of their foolish
actions. A few days earlier six youths had terrified the public in
Musselburgh after they were spotted waving an air pistol in the
air. Armed police had to overpower a gunman at a Lothian hospital,
while another man in Edinburgh was arrested after threatening a bus
driver with an imitation firearm.
Evening Times, 11
July 2002
Student Gary McArdle, who
had brandished an
air pistol at a taxi driver in Stevenston,
Ayrshire, was jailed for four months at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.
Edinburgh News,
5 July 2002
The Edinburgh News reports on a police firearms
amnesty, encouraging people to hand in imitation weapons, air
weapons and other guns. The two month long campaign began on
Monday.
Deputy Chief Constable Tom Wood reported that, in
just one 24 hour period this week, Lothian and Borders firearms
teams had been called out three times to deal with incidents,
including a man who waved a gun at a bus driver on Leith Walk
yesterday afternoon.. Armed response teams rushed to the scene –
the gun was retrieved and found to be an imitation handgun.
At
another incident on Wednesday night, firearms officers were called
after reports of a man in position of a handgun in Bonington Road.
The ‘gun’ was found to be imitation. Edinburgh MP Mark Lazarowicz
has backed a Westminster campaign to tighten the awes governing the
ownership and use of airguns after reading about the amnesty in the
Evening News. The Edinburgh North and Leith MP called for the legal
age for unsupervised use of airguns and pistols to be raised from 14
to 17.
Evening
Times, 4 July 2002
Kevin Young appeared at
Paisley Sheriff Court admitting unlawful possession of an
air pistol
with which he had wounded another man. His victim needed 29
stitches in the wound.
Press and Journal, 5 June 2002
A
14-year-old girl had a 4.5 mm calibre air pistol aimed at her head
to teach her a lesson during a row. Ian Thomson had unlocked the
safety catch and the girl had thought it might be loaded. He
grabbed hold of the girl and pointed the gun, designated to be an
imitation firearm, towards her.
Press and Journal, 4 May 2002
At Peterhead Sheriff Court Gordon Mason was
jailed for nearly two years after admitting to pulling a
fake
handgun on two policemen after a family dispute. The weapon was a
ball-bearing-firing pistol.
Daily Record, 1 May 2002
The newspaper
reported an incident in which a 17-year-old pupil at Fettes College
pulled an airgun from his bag and blasted a fellow pupil in the
chest in front of other pupils after a playground feud. The
shooting was not reported to the police. A school spokesman
confirmed that an incident had taken place and that one pupil was
suspended for two weeks. This contrasts with the punishment of a
sixth-form girl who had leaked details of the expulsion of three
pupils for drug-taking. She too was expelled. Fettes College has a
well-established shooting club and rifle range.
Scotsman, 15 April 2002
Three football players were
hit by pellets fired from an airgun
during a match between Shotts
Bon Accord and Blantyre Victoria at the Castle Park ground in
Blantyre, South Lanarkshire. The police believe that the shots may
have been fired from a wooded area close to the ground.
Press and Journal, 16 March 2002
A man who held up a village garage with an
imitation air weapon was jailed for five-and-a-half years. His
victim, a petrol-pump attendant at an Oldmeldrum garage, was said to
have been extremely frightened.
Edinburgh Evening News,
20 February 2002
A 16-year-old student was arrested and charged
after brandishing a gun, a realistic but replica firearm. Tom Wood,
Deputy Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police warned that
police marksmen could end up killing someone in Edinburgh if people
continue to brandish imitation guns.
BBC,
10 February 2002
A
man was overpowered by police officers in the accident and emergency
department at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley after he had
pointed an imitation gun
at a doctor. The department had to be
evacuated during the incident
Times, 5 January 2002
A
14 year old girl was at risk of being shot by police as she waved a
gun in the air outside an Edinburgh shopping mall in a late
night incident. The weapon was a silver handled
air pistol.
WALES
Daily Mirror, 10 June 2002
A teenager may have been left blinded after being hit in the eye
with an airgun whilst he was fishing at Holyhead on Anglesey.
He was taken to hospital in Bangor, but because his injury was so
serious he was moved to a specialist eye hospital in Manchester.
A group of youths were seen laughing and running away after the
incident.
INCIDENTS INVOLVING ANIMALS
25 June 2002
The RSPCA believes
swans are being systematically shot on the
River Aire
by someone targeting them for
airgun practice.
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