Man jailed for drunken air rifle prank that led to friend’s death

Christopher Humphreys, 24, died in hospital six days after he was wounded by Russell Fairchild.

Sheffield Crown Court heard the pair had been out drinking with friends before the group returned to Fairchild’s home in Sheffield on the evening of Sunday May 5.

The group continued to drink beer and were watching TV when he brought his air rifle into the living room and drunkenly began waving it around.

Fairchild, who had also been smoking cannabis, drunkenly told his friend of more than 15 years, Humphreys, to “dance, dance” before firing the gun, which he believed to be unloaded.

He only realised Humphreys, from Handsworth, Sheffield, was injured when a friend called him back into the room.

Emergency services were called to the house on Handsworth Grange Road just after 10.20pm and Humphreys taken to hospital.

The court heard Fairchild, whose hands were covered in his friend’s blood, was “heavily intoxicated, incoherent and very upset” when police and paramedics arrived.

Officers had to drag a shocked Fairchild, who was crying uncontrollably, off his friend’s body.

Doctors found the pellet had struck Mr Humphreys above his right eye and penetrated his brain.

Despite their best efforts, Humphreys died in Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital on May 11.

In mitigation, Michelle Colbourne QC, defending Fairchild, said: “The defendant will have to live with the knowledge and the guilt that he killed his friend for ever.

“He is devastated by the loss and full of self-loathing”

Fairchild told police he had been too drunk to check whether there was a pellet in the gun.

He said he had never pointed the gun at anyone when loaded.

He admitted manslaughter at a previous hearing at Sheffield Crown Court.

However, friends told the police Fairchild had got the air gun out on previous occasions when drunk “in horseplay”.

They said he would point the gun at people’s heads when there was no pellet in it and fire it “for fun”, the court heard.

Sentencing him, Judge Julian Goose QC, said: “While in your intoxicated state you picked up an air rifle and began to aim it around the living room.

“You fired the air rifle, believing it to be unloaded, at the face of Christopher Humphreys. The air rifle was indeed loaded. It fired an air pellet.”

The judge accepted that Fairchild had not meant to cause any harm to his friend.

But he added: “The act of pointing the gun at a friend’s head is a seriously dangerous one but when affected by drink and drugs it is a more culpable act.”

Fairchild was jailed for three years.

He was told he would serve half his sentence before being released on licence.