{"id":6135,"date":"2017-03-10T11:54:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T16:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=6135"},"modified":"2017-03-10T11:54:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T16:54:03","slug":"farmer-83-cleared-shooting-man-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/03\/10\/farmer-83-cleared-shooting-man-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer, 83, cleared over shooting man on his land"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">An 83-year-old farmer who shot a convicted burglar on his land has been cleared of inflicting grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n<p>Kenneth Hugill, from Wilberfoss, near York, shot Richard Stables injuring him in the foot on 13 November 2015.\u00a0 Hull Crown Court heard Mr Hugill saw a car drive past his remote farmhouse at around 02:00 GMT which he thought &#8220;was up to no good&#8221;.\u00a0 Mr Stables, 44, had claimed he had stumbled onto the farm accidentally.<\/p>\n<p>The three-day trial was told how Mr Hugill was woken by a light at his bedroom window at around 02:00 before he got dressed and went outside, with his shotgun, to investigate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I walked across what I thought was the front of a vehicle,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It revved up loudly and drove towards me. It petrified me. I did not see any people. I heard nothing at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hugill, who uses a walking stick and a hearing aid, said he had fired one shot at the side of the vehicle and another into the air.<\/p>\n<p>He had he said not intended to hurt anyone but merely intended to frighten them off.<\/p>\n<p>The jury took 24 minutes to clear him.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1011A\/production\/_95081856_hull-stablesrichard3hullnews-pictures.jpg\" alt=\"Richard Stables\" width=\"976\" height=\"976\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Mr Stables, who was shot in the foot, denied plans to steal diesel from the farm <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Speaking outside the court, Mr Hugill said: &#8220;I&#8217;m very, very pleased. We thought I shouldn&#8217;t have been prosecuted right from the start, I didn&#8217;t feel it was justified at the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I pulled the trigger because I thought that car was going to kill me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Crown Prosecution Service has defended its decision to prosecute.\u00a0 Chief Crown Prosecutor Gerry Wareham said: &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hugill&#8217;s son, David, 50, said Humberside Police took 15 hours to respond to a call he made at 02:23 GMT to report a suspected diesel theft at the farm.\u00a0 He said the farm had experienced problems with poaching and attempted diesel thefts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The police are pushed to the limit and can&#8217;t cover the countryside, and people have the right to protect their property in the middle of the night when there is no response or back-up,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The court had already heard that Mr Stables, from Bradford, claimed he was out hunting rabbits with a friend, who was driving.\u00a0 Mr Stables and the driver, Adrian Barron from Oldham, both have convictions for burglary and theft.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-humber-39233017\" target=\"_blank\">www.bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px\/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% \/ 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; top: 428px; left: 60px;\">Save<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px\/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% \/ 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; top: 428px; left: 60px;\">Save<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px\/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c  no-repeat scroll 3px 50% \/ 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;\">Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">An 83-year-old farmer who shot a convicted burglar on his land has been cleared of inflicting grievous bodily harm. Kenneth Hugill, from Wilberfoss, near York, shot Richard Stables injuring him in the foot on 13 <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/03\/10\/farmer-83-cleared-shooting-man-land\/\" title=\"Farmer, 83, cleared over shooting man on his land\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[2959,2958,2957],"class_list":{"0":"post-6135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-cps","10":"tag-farmer","11":"tag-humberside","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6135"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6142,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135\/revisions\/6142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}