Trio cleared of firearms charges

6:05pm Wednesday 23rd January 2008

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By Peter Magill »

THREE men have been cleared of firearms offences after a 12-year-old trespasser was injured by a boobytrap.

Skip hire firm owner Jack Clarkson installed the boobytrap at his mill in Worsthorne, after he suffered a spate of thefts and fire damage.

It was triggered by someone walking into a trip wire which discharged a shotgun cartridge into the ground from the barrelled contraption.

Jack John Ashley, known as JJ, bypassed the boobytrap and took it home where he accidentally set it off, Burnley Crown Court was told.

He suffered injuries to his left hand and needed hospital treatment to surgically remove the pellets.

Clarkson, 63, was arrested after the boobytrap exploded and injured the 12-year-old boy.

He said a build-up of thefts, vandalism and fire damage led him to set up the device for the first time on the day of the accident.

Earlier, JJ and three other youths entered the mill and activated the device on the evening of April 6, 2006.

They all ran off but three of them later returned the same night and took it off the premises.

Judge Andrew Woolman had told the jury on Monday there was no contention the device was a firearm.

He said it was up to them to decide whether it was prohibited or if it fitted the exemption of being a form of signalling apparatus.

Clarkson was supplied with the boobytrap by his friend, Derek Kokocinski, 56, of Burnley, who was cleared of manufacturing a prohibited firearm. Peter Smith, 51, of Gordon Street, Worsthorne, who was supplied with a similar alarm gun by Kokocinski, was cleared of possessing a prohibited firearm on his allotment.

Clarkson was cleared of illegally possessing a prohibited firearm. He faced a minimum five-year jail term if found guilty.

All three defendants had denied the charges.

The jury returned their not guilty verdicts at Burnley Crown Court in under three hours. Speaking after the verdict, Phil Ashley, father of JJ, now 14, said: "We all felt from the very beginning there should have been a charge of malicious wounding. The Crown Prosecution Service said that they would be able to get a conviction on the firearms charges."

He said that he was now lobbying Home Secretary Jacqui Smith through Burnley MP Kitty Ussher to have such make-shift security devices made illegal.

Mr Ashley added: "It was fortunate that this happened only yards from our front door as the device severed one of the main arteries in his hand and blood was hitting the ceiling.

"Luckily me and a neighbour were able to take him to a hospital almost immediately. "