Hartlepool man shoots boyfriend in the head with air gun after row over cigarettes and sandwiches

Ken Richardson was handed a 32 month sentence at Teesside Crown Court Credit: Gazette Media Company Syndication

A man has been jailed after shooting his boyfriend in the head with an air gun after a row over cigarettes and sandwiches.

Ken Richardson held the weapon up to Martin Sharp's head and shot him - after Mr Sharp had ignored Richardson's offer to make him a sandwich, three times.

The couple had rowed minutes earlier, after Mr Sharp caught Richardson taking his cigarettes.

Mr Sharp was rushed to James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough on 27 March, but surgeons decided it was safer to leave the pellet lodged in his skull.

Richardson, 44, appeared at Teesside Crown Court, via video link from Durham prison, on Thursday morning (19 September).

He was originally facing an attempted murder charge, but the court accepted his guilty pleas to causing grievous bodily harm with intent and to the possession of a firearm with intent.

Ken Richardson was handed a 32 months sentence at Teesside Crown Court. Credit: NCJ Media Syndication

The court heard that the couple have been in an on-off relationship for many years, and that Richardson was struggling with poor mental health and drug addiction.

Mr Sharp let Richardson move in to help him - but Richardson ended up becoming Mr Sharp's carer after the victim developed a bad back.

Richardson had asked his partner for some cigarettes and Mr Sharp had given him some on the evening of 26 March- but he said that when he woke up the next morning, he caught Richardson taking more.

Mr Sharp said that he picked up the cigarette packet and "threw it behind him." He later ignored Richardson's offer of a sandwich.

In a statement read out to the court, Mr Sharp said: "The next thing I heard a loud sound to my head.

"I turned and looked and I saw the barrel of my air rifle inches from my face."

Mr Sharp rang the police at 6.45am; and Richardson was found waiting outside "with his bags packed" when officers arrived at the Hartlepool home.

In a letter, the victim asked the judge to hand Richardson a lenient sentence. "I believe it was his mental health that caused him to do what he did" Mr Sharp said.

A psychiatrist's report found that Richardson may have been suffering from psychosis at the time. Richardson himself said he was "hearing voices because of all of the drugs" he had taken.

Judge Timothy Stead told Richardson that his victim "has done something which is unusual. He feels a degree of blame for the situation himself and there were clearly domestic strains at the time.

"You have a long history of drug abuse and it may well be that your thinking was disturbed to some extent. Discharging this weapon at someone's temple at close range - you are both fortunate that no further harm was caused."

Speaking to Mr Sharp, who sat in the public gallery, the judge said that the law does not permit him to suspend the sentence. Richardson, of Telford Close in Hartlepool, was jailed for 32-months.

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