A retired Broughton man who shot and blinded an intruder in one eye now faces an agonising four-week wait to find out whether he will be jailed after being found guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

A jury at Lancaster Crown Court took five hours to find 63-year-old Anthony Goldsworthy Spray, of High Cross Bungalow, Broughton-in-Furness, guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Paul Evans the crime carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. But they returned a verdict of not guilty on the more serious charge of intentionally causing GBH which carries a possible life sentence.

Judge Michael Byrne postponed sentencing Spray so that reports could be compiled on his character and health.

Spray, who suffers from the debilitating intestine illness, Crohn's disease, and walked from court with the aid of a stick, must now wait until May 16 to find out if he will be sent to prison. Outside court with his wife and family, he said: "We are relieved that at least some of the stress is over - now we would just like to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, which is today."

During the eight-day trial, the court had heard that the retired agricultural consultant from Lincolnshire had fulfilled a lifetime's ambition by moving to the Lake District two-and-a-half years ago.

But, at around 3am on November 2 last year, he was woken by the terrified cries of his wife and "a tremendous banging and rattling" at the front door.

Spray told how he put on dressing gown and slippers, loaded his .22 air rifle, and went to the hallway where the door rattled violently held only by a security chain. He claimed that his shout of "stop it" only intensified the attack. Believing the door was about to give way, Spray removed the security chain, opened the door and stepped back. "I intended negotiation, not fisticuffs," he claimed.

When the door flew open Spray saw the silhouette of a young man in the porch. He claimed he shouted "go away" but the man shouted abuse back at him and lunged forwards. Without aiming, Spray said, he "fired from the hip". When his attacker kept coming he hit him in the head three times with the butt of the rifle.

It was only when the intruder was sprawled out in the porch that Spray noticed blood coming from his victim's left eye and his wife dialled 999.

The man he had shot was 19-year-old trainee civil engineer Paul Phillip Evans, from St Ives, Cambridgeshire.

Evans had travelled up the previous day for a family party in the High Cross Inn, next door to the Spray's home. After around five hours in the pub, Mr Evans went to his BMW car to listen to music on his six speaker stereo system. Making his way back after urinating in a nearby lane, he apparently mistook the Spray's bungalow for the three-storey pub and begun hammering on the door.

The pellet from Spray's gun pierced Mr Evan's left eyeball the softest exposed tissue of the human body - and the eye later had to be surgically removed. The pellet remains lodged in his eye socket.

Weapons expert Giles Whittome, told the jury the injury was the result of "a freakishly unlucky shot" and said that even the finest SAS marksmen could never repeat it under those circumstances.

The first paramedic on the scene wrote in his notes that Mr Evans, who had forgotten to do his flies up, and had left his car open with the engine running and stereo on, was "very drunk". Mr Evans himself said he had no recollection at all of events that evening.

Spray told the court he believed he and his wife were under attack and he was defending himself when he pulled the trigger.

"All I was doing was protecting myself and my wife," he said, "I did not intend to do him any great harm."

But Crown Prosecutor Francis Nance said Spray would never have removed the security chain and opened the door if he had genuinely feared for his safety and accused him of deliberately opening the door to get at Evans.

"The only rational reason for opening the security of the door was first to shoot, then to club and thus subdue," he said.

Defending, Kevin Talbot told the jury Evans was "very, very drunk" and violently banging the Sprays' front door. Given the rural nature of the area, he said, Spray had quite reasonably believed there was little prospect of the police arriving in time to help and had simply taken steps to defend himself.

"He did not want to fire that weapon but, in the agony of the moment, he believed that he had no alternative," said Talbot.

In reaching their guilty verdict the jury decided that Spray had not been lawfully defending himself, but had not deliberately intended to cause Evans really serious bodily harm when he pulled the trigger.

After the verdict in what Judge Byrne described as "a long and difficult case with many tragic features", he told Spray: "You have been convicted of a very serious crime I must tell you that all sentencing options are open to the court." Spray was released on bail.

April 17, 2003 17:30