An elderly farmer, who has been on trial for shooting a man he believed was trying to steal his diesel, has been found not guilty today (10 March).
Father-of-three Kenneth Hugill, 83, used a double-barrel shotgun to shoot Richard Stables, 44, as he walked out to challenge him in pitch darkness outside his farmhouse in Wilberfoss, near York.
Mr Stables, of Bradford, who had been out lamping with a lurcher dog told a jury at Hull Crown Court he and a friend had stumbled on the farm when he was shot in the foot without warning.
The jury heard Stables has convictions for burglary and theft, possession of an offensive weapon and was on a police intelligence crime list as a person active in rural crime.
Giving evidence from the witness box at Hull Crown Court, Mr Hugill said he had gone to bed at 9pm with wife Sheila, 78, when he was alerted by a light outside at around 2am before seeing a vehicle entering the farm with it’s light’s off.
He said: "I thought initially it was someone with a flash light. It was black. The next thing was a slight silhouette of a vehicle going past the farmyard entrance. The vehicle did not have its lights on. I thought it was up to no good.
"I got up. Got dressed, came down stairs, put my boot and cap on opened the gun cabinet, took out two cartridges and went out to investigate what was in the yard."
'It petrified me'
He said he walked across his yard and saw the vehicle outside his farm building.
"It revved up loudly and drove towards me. It petrified me. I thought it was coming at me," he said.
"I fired a shot down the side of the vehicle, near to the floor in to the ground to stop it coming at me.
"At this point there were no lights on. I thought there were people in the car. I did not want to hit anybody. I just wanted to frighten them away.
"I fired a second shot up in the air. After the vehicle had gone I went back to the house. I contacted my son."
Prosecutor Christopher Dunn told Hull Crown Court that Mr Hugill ‘accepts he fired a shotgun’ and that the injuries were caused by him.
But, the prosecutor said, what is an issue is exactly what happened at the time the shot was fired, and why it was fired.
