A teenager who shot a 15-year-old boy in the face with a double-barrelled shotgun has been found guilty of attempted murder.
The victim was left partially paralysed after being shot from a distance of only 1.5 metres while walking to school in Kesgrave, near Ipswich, last September, a trial at Ipswich crown court heard.
The jury found the defendant guilty of attempted murder and a further offence of possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger the boy’s life.
The defendant previously admitted to possession of a shotgun with intent to cause fear of injury to the boy. He will be remanded in custody until his sentencing in September.
The 16-year-old defendant from Woodbridge in Suffolk and his victim cannot be identified because of their ages.
The defendant said in evidence that he wanted to “scare” the boy after he had caused him “humiliation and fear”. He then fired the gun unintentionally, he told the court.
But in a police video interview played to jurors, a friend said that the defendant had spoken of a plan to shoot the boy, which he did not think was serious.
The defendant took his father’s car and drove to the location, where he lay in wait for the boy for more than an hour then shot him with his grandfather’s Beretta, according to prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones QC.
A witness said the defendant appeared “very calm, very cool, very collected” after the shooting and “didn’t seem to have any urgency about him”.
Karmy-Jones described the victim’s injuries as “devastating and life-changing”.
Chloe Baker, an air ambulance doctor, said the gunshot wound “extended across his lower right face and the right front area of his neck, and the bone and teeth of his right jaw were largely absent”.
The injured boy’s mother screamed: “What have you done” three times in a CCTV clip played to the court.
The defendant drove from the scene and was arrested later that morning by armed police as he sat in the parked car five miles away in Ipswich, with officers describing him as “smiling”.
In police bodycam footage played to the court, the teenager told officers: “I’ve done what I wanted to do, as scummy as it is.”
Det Supt David Henderson, the senior investigating officer, said: “This was a truly shocking incident, the like of which I have never encountered before – particularly due to the age of the parties involved.
“The victim has suffered lifelong injuries as a result of this attack, which has been devastating for him and his family – some of whom had the additional trauma of going to his aid immediately after the shooting occurred.
“The victim had everything to look forward to in life that a teenager should have, but this attack has certainly robbed him of the remainder of his childhood and will likely impact on him well into his adult life.”
