Farmer who shot burglar is cleared by jury
11 March
2017
A farmer who
shot a convicted burglar he thought was stealing diesel from his farm cried
outside court today after a jury took just 24 minutes to clear him of GBH.
Father-of-three
Kenneth Hugill, 83, who had two hip replacements and a heart-bypass operation,
was arrested, finger printed and forced to fund his own £30,000 defence after
he shot Richard Stables, 44, in the foot outside his isolated farmhouse at
Wilberfoss, near York.
Mr Hugill
shook the hand of his solicitor and wept outside court briefly after a jury at
Hull Crown Court cleared him of causing grievous bodily harm.
Today his
family revealed that following the incident their home was surrounded by armed
police and a helicopter who believed they were holding a hostage more than 15
hours after the shooting.
The family
criticised both the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service for their decision
to prosecute an 83-year-old man defending his home.
Speaking
outside the court, Mr Hugill said: 'I'm very, very pleased. It's marvellous.
'We thought
I shouldn't have been prosecuted right from the start, I didn't feel it was
justified at the time.
'I pulled
the trigger because I thought that car was going to kill me.'
Mr Hugill
told the court yesterday that he was 'petrified' when the Land Rover 'revved
up' without lights on and set off towards him.
He fired two
shots - one towards the side of the vehicle and another in the air to frighten
the occupants away.
Richard
Stables, a convicted burglar, was hit in the foot and driven straight to
hospital by his friend Adrian Barron, a seasoned criminal with convictions for
burglary and violence.
Mr Stables
suffered serious injuries but survived and gave evidence as a prosecution
witness.
The
terrified farmer, who walks with a crutch and has never previously been in
trouble with the law, ended up being charged with grievous bodily harm and put
on trial at Hull Crown Court.
Humberside
Police currently are in possession of his gun and it is unclear if he will get
it back.
Concerning
his licence, Judge David Tremberg told the court that it was up to the chief
constable to look at the 'renewal' of Mr Hugill's licence.
It is not
known if Mr Hugill's licence will be taken away from him.
Yesterday he
hobbled to the witness box to recall the early hours of November 13, 2015.
He was
asleep with wife Sheila, 78, at the family farm in Wilberfoss, East Yorkshire,
where he has lived and worked for almost his entire life, when he noticed a
light outside as he returned from the bathroom at around 2am.
'I saw it
appear again and thought it was somebody with a flashlight, but it was so black
dark I couldn't see anything,' he said.
'The next
thing I saw was the silhouette of a vehicle going past the farmhouse. I thought
it was creeping up slowly with no noise and no lights on and thought it was up
to no good.'
Hugill spoke
to his wife, got dressed, put on his hat and went downstairs in the dark. He
told police they didn't get electricity until 1954 so he could find his way
around without lights.
He went into
the yard after taking the shotgun - given to him as a 21st birthday present by
his parents - and loading it with two cartridges.
'I walked
towards where I thought the vehicle was,' he said. 'I still couldn't see
anything really.'
The farmer
said he was startled by the sound of the Land Rover's engine and had little
time to react.
'I stood
still and practically immediately heard the engine, very, very loud. I was
petrified for a second or two and thought it was coming at me,' he said.
'I fired the
shotgun to the side of the vehicle towards the floor. The lights of the vehicle
were off. I didn't want to hit anybody, just frighten them away.'
Hugill said
the closest he got to the car was 12 to 15ft and he never saw anyone in it.
A second
shot was fired 'straight up' as the car drove away to deter the occupants from
returning, the court heard.
Once back
inside the farmhouse he phoned his son who lives nearby, and the son called
police, although they did not come out that night.
The court
heard the men may have been on the site to steal diesel from tanks near the
farmhouse and a lock had been 'tampered with'.
Christopher
Dunn, prosecuting, told the jury the issue was 'whether it was reasonable for
Mr Hugill to act in the way he did'.
He said the
Crown's case was that the farmer fired the gun 'recklessly' and 'without
shouting' or calling the police first.
Asked under
cross-examination if it was 'a bit much' to take a shotgun outside to
investigate, Hugill replied: 'I didn't know who was out there, it was only for
protection.'
Yesterday
Stables, who uses a wheelchair to get about because of his injuries, claimed to
be 'lamping' - hunting for rabbits by torchlight - with a friend and his dog on
the night of the incident.
He said they
were lost on a country road and pulled up near the defendant's farmhouse to
clean up a mess the lurcher dog had made inside their Land Rover.
Mr Stables,
44, told the court he may have pointed the 'lamp' at the farmhouse window by
accident but had no idea diesel tanks were nearby.
He told the
jury he was putting the dog back into the car when he was shot in the foot
without warning.
'As I went
to shut the door I saw a figure appear. No words were spoken. Whoever was stood
there fired a gun that hit my foot,' he said.
'I felt
excruciating pain. I thought my foot had gone. The shot went all the way
through my foot taking all the bones with it.'
'I thought
my foot was not there. I can't remember much after, except we set off driving.
I heard another shot. It may have been straight away afterwards. There were
definitely two shots. One hit me in the foot. I was bleeding quite lot.'
Mr Stables
said he used a rope for a tourniquet and went to York Hospital's accident and
emergency unit, where he was dropped off by his friend Barron, 40.
The injured
man gave three different versions of how he suffered his shotgun injuries
before eventually admitting a farmer shot him.
The court
heard Mr Stables had a criminal history with convictions for burglary, theft
and possession of an offensive weapon.
He was also
on a police intelligence list as a person active in rural crime after an
incident in the Yorkshire Dales where an officer threatened him with CS spray.
The defence
claimed Stables and Barron were there to steal diesel not hunt for rabbits.
Roderick
Hunt, defending, told Stables: 'You just made it up. It is the dog defence that burglars
have when they are stopped by the police.'
Chief Crown
Prosecutor for Yorkshire and Humberside Gerry Wareham said today: 'We
considered all the evidence in this case extremely carefully, and took full
account of the situation Mr Hugill found himself in that evening.
'We are
satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to put the matter before a court
and that it was in the public interest to do so. The jury has now returned
their verdict and we respect their decision.'
