A teenager who went on a shooting spree
with his father’s guns - killing two Shetland ponies kept as pets by an old
people’s home in Shropshire - failed to win a cut in his potentially lifelong
sentence.
The 16-year-old, who cannot be named
for legal reasons, had his case dismissed at London’s Court of Appeal
yesterday. The court heard he had been excluded from his family home because they
found him “impossible to control”.
But in May 2008, he broke into the
house and the gun cabinet, taking out a number of weapons to “show off” to a
friend, said Mr Justice Mc-Combe, who heard the boy’s appeal.
Fuelled by drink, the pair then went
out and began firing shots near the Edgeley House Nursing and Residential Home,
in Whitchurch.
One of the shots killed a pony and
another bullet ricocheted through a window, eventually embedding itself in a
wall.
The boy’s friend shot and killed the
other pony and the pair later told friends how the animal screamed before dying
a “long painful death”, the judge said.
The teenager, who normally lived in a care home, admitted
burglary, possessing a firearm with intent, having a firearm and ammunition in
a public place and destroying property in September last year.
He was sentenced to indefinite
detention for public protection and was ordered to serve at least two years
behind bars before he could even apply for parole.
The boy’s legal team yesterday argued
before Mr Justice McCombe, sitting with Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice
Mackay, that his sentence should be cut because of his youth and troubled
background.
But the judges disagreed, saying that
the boy had participated in the “wanton and cruel slaughter” of the two ponies,
called Bill and Ben.
Mr Justice McCombe concluded that the
slaughter of two harmless animals “amply warranted” the boy’s indefinite
sentence, from which he will only be released once he can convince the
authorities that he poses no serious danger to the public.