SHOT FRIEND DEAD

Grey River Argus, 30 November 1938, Page 8

SHOT FRIEND DEAD

Said “Hands Up” for Joke

. ■ LONDON, October 2. Getting a sporting gun from his father’s bedroom, a youth, Raymond Grantham, of The Bungalow, Old Millhillians’ Sports Ground, Pinner, pointed it at his friend, 15-year-old Leonard William Fox, and said: “Hands up.” He pulled the trigger, unaware that it .was loaded. Fox- an engineer’s assistant and son of a police constable, of Sydney-road, Wealdstone, died from a bullet wound in the chest. This was stated at the Wealdstone inquest to-day when the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. Grantham, describing how he pointed the gun at his friend, said: “I knew that it was sometimes loaded, but I didn’t think to look on this occasion. I pointed it in a joking manner.” Mr Reginald Grantham, his father, said Raymond was forbidden to go to the bedroom where the gun was kept.

He kept the rifle for shooting rats. The extractor was broken, and once a cartridge was in it could be extracted only with a ramrod pushed through the muzzle. Sometimes it was kept loaded.

P.-c. Harvey Jaquest, who examined the gun, said he thought that it was very dangerous. After the coroner had expressed

sympathy with the fathers ,of both boys and with Grantham, Fox’s father stood up in court and said: ,r I am sorry that my son’s friend should have been the innocent means of his death.”