Host Fired Shotgun To Make Crowd Go

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 24

Host Fired Shotgun To Make Crowd Go

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 5.

When people grouped on the street and in the back of a truck failed to leave the front of his house after a party early on Saturday, a 21-year-old plumber went to the bedroom, got a shotgun and fired at them, Mr A. A. Coates, S-M., was told today.

Bruce Montague Pilcher pleaded guilty to a charge of discharging a 12 gauge, double-barrelled shotgun in a manner likely to injure or endanger safety of any person, on February 3. He was sentenced to the maximum of three months gaol. The Magistrate said Pilcher had earned every day of it He ordered that three guns taken from the house be forfeited.

"This man is not safe to hold a firearm,” he said. Senior-Sergeant P. W. Wiseman said that about 1.30 a-m. on Saturday Pilcher had been at a party at his home in Papatoetoe after spending several hours earlier at a local club. Told To Leave When the party broke up, a large group gathered on the street and another in the back of a truck. Pilcher left the house and told them to “clear off”.

When nobody moved, he returned to his bedroom where he took his shotgun and fired a shot through the window at those in the street. Nobody was injured, but the group scattered. When the truck started, Pilcher fired a shot into the rear.

Three people were hit, a youth and a girl in the legs, and another youth in the buttocks.

Other people at the house then disarmed Pilcher and threw the gun into the garden.

When police went to the house they found the shotgun, a .22 rifle and a .303 rifle, all registered in Pilcher’s name.