Charity worker jailed for shooting shop worker with BB gun

Published on Wednesday 6 February 2008 15:01

A CHARITY volunteer who shot a shop worker with a plastic pellet from a toy gun has been jailed for two months.

Darren Brakes, 42, claimed he was messing about with the BB gun with his girlfriend in a fourth-floor flat when the shot was fired.

It went through the window and struck toy-shop worker Stephen Watt as he smoked a cigarette across the road outside the Wonderland store in Lothian Road.

He reported the incident to police even though he said he barely felt the plastic pellet strike him on the chest and suffered no injuries.

Brakes was charged with culpably and recklessly discharging a BB gun.

He admitted the charge last month and sentence was deferred until today.

Brakes, of Camelford, Cornwall, told Edinburgh Sheriff Court that he owned two donkeys and took disabled children for rides as part of a charity project in Cornwall.

Sheriff Kathrine Mackie said the offence was worthy of a jail sentence and ordered him to serve two months in prison.