Follow up to jailed teacher story w/air gun - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

andersbenz · #1 05-05-2005, 12:16 AM

Teacher who fired airgun at youths freed from jail but conviction stands

Helen Carter
Thursday May 5, 2005

Guardian

A special needs teacher who fired an air pistol at youths gathered outside her home was yesterday freed from jail by the appeal court.
Linda Walker, 48, from Urmston, Greater Manchester, was given a conditional discharge but refused permission to challenge her conviction.

She was jailed for six months in March this year after she was convicted of affray and possessing a firearm in an incident which occurred last August. Mrs Walker said she fired the gun after youths had terrorised her. She described the gang as "yobs".

Mrs Walker, who has 25 years' experience working with special needs children, had served about five weeks of her sentence in Styal women's prison, Cheshire. A petition demanding she should be freed from prison attracted 10,000 signatures.

In prison, she briefly went on hunger strike after learning that an appeal court judge had refused to allow her to go home on bail pending appeal against conviction. She said she felt let down by the police and criminal justice system.

Mrs Walker, a mother of three children, and her family had telephoned police on 15 occasions after seeing their garden shed burgled, their garden trashed, and damage caused to a car and security light. But they allegedly got no response.
At midnight on August 14 last year, she looked out of her window and saw her son's car in the drive covered in washing up liquid. The empty bottle had been placed on the bonnet. She took a gas-powered Walther CP88 pellet pistol, belonging to her partner, John Cavanagh, from a drawer and went outside to confront three youths. When they goaded her, shouting: "Come on then, are you going to shoot?", she fired up to six rounds at the ground.

Her counsel, Farrhat Arshad, argued that the jail term was wrong in principle. Although she accepted firearms offences were serious and usually punished by imprisonment, she argued that Walker's case was exceptional.

A pre-sentence report had recommended a community rehabilitation order. She had been of previous exemplary character, and "stressful circumstances had come to a head".

Walker had sought at the appeal to use fresh evidence from a milkman, David Matthews, that one of the youths had been seen on her property. However, the judges said the evidence did not relate to what happened on the day she confronted the youths.

A spokesman for Salford city council said Walker was suspended from her teaching post pending the police investigation and court action. "Now legal proceedings are ended, this formal disciplinary action will be completed as quickly as possible."

Lisa Davies, of the Justice for Linda Campaign, said: "It is fantastic that she is out and able to return home. But this matter should never have gone to court in the first place."

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, welcomed the decision to free Mrs Walker. What she had done was wrong, "but so was the sentence".

Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday, Walker thanked everyone who had backed her campaign.

R Leo · #2 05-05-2005, 07:13 AM

Since when is an airgun a firearm?...even a Walther CP88?

boneheaddoctor · #3 05-05-2005, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo

Since when is an airgun a firearm?...even a Walther CP88?

If you are a Clintonista anything that looks like a gun is considered a firearm......even a kids toy.

pxland · #4 05-05-2005, 08:35 AM

The only thing wrong with this whole story is the fact that it happened in England. Much harsher gun laws.

If the cops consider eggs missles...I can see the (idiotic) corelation between a pellet gun and a firearm.

boneheaddoctor · #5 05-05-2005, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pxland

The only thing wrong with this whole story is the fact that it happened in England. Much harsher gun laws.

If the cops consider eggs missles...I can see the (idiotic) corelation between a pellet gun and a firearm.

England is only on step behind Germany and france in sucking up to the Muslim horde who want world domination....criminals and terrorists have more rights there than the law abiding population....

Thank god for America.....and the fact that except for small areas under the socialist control of the democrats (for example WASH, DC and NYC) we have the right to defend ourselves against the criminals.

cmac2012 · #6 05-06-2005, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pxland

The only thing wrong with this whole story is the fact that it happened in England. Much harsher gun laws.

If the cops consider eggs missles...I can see the (idiotic) corelation between a pellet gun and a firearm.

I absolutely agree that the woman had a right to confront the anal-holes who were harrassing her, but on a side note, a year or so ago, there was an account in the news of someone getting killed with a pellet gun. Some kids thought they were just going to bug some people at random and apparently, they hit this one guy in the back and it got into his kidney. Seems fantastic, I know.

Also, years ago, a friend of mine shot himself in the finger with a Walther pistol pellet gun -- he was trying to support the gun with his free hand like your supposed to, and he didn't realize his finger was in front of the barrell! It buried itself in the flesh, had to be taken out by a doctor.

I got hit a few times by BB guns as a kid and they never actually entered my flesh, but I guess pellet guns can be more powerful.

R Leo · #7 05-06-2005, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pxland

If the cops consider eggs missles...I can see the (idiotic) corelation between a pellet gun ....

But wouldnt' that make it a pullet gun?

boneheaddoctor · #8 05-06-2005, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo

But wouldnt' that make it a pullet gun?

If they consider that a deadly weapon what would the consider letting rip a silent but deadly after eating beans in an elevator or the underground (subway).....you would get charged with using Weapons of Mass Destruction.

R Leo · #9 05-06-2005, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

If they consider that a deadly weapon what would the consider letting rip a silent but deadly after eating beans in an elevator or the underground (subway).....you would get charged with using Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But first, they'd have to find them.

A pullet gun, get it?

boneheaddoctor · #10 05-06-2005, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R Leo

But first, they'd have to find them.

A pullet gun, get it?

I got it.....would a squab cannon be considered a heavy weapon?

R Leo · #11 05-06-2005, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

I got it.....would a squab cannon be considered a heavy weapon?

Only if it shot Dove™ bars.

pxland · #12 05-06-2005, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

I got it.....would a squab cannon be considered a heavy weapon?

Is that like a potato gun that fires birds?

boneheaddoctor · #13 05-06-2005, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pxland

Is that like a potato gun that fires birds?

exactly...a squab being a baby chicken about the size of a cornish game hen.

pxland · #14 05-06-2005, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

exactly...a squab being a baby chicken about the size of a cornish game hen.

In that case, the Dove bar comment was really ****** funny.

R Leo · #15 05-06-2005, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

exactly...a squab being a baby chicken about the size of a cornish game hen.

squab
adj : short and fat [syn: squabby] n 1: flesh of a pigeon suitable for roasting or braising; flesh of a dove (young squab) may be broiled [syn: dove] 2: a soft padded sofa 3: an unfledged pigeon

pullet
n 1: flesh of a medium-sized young chicken suitable for frying [syn: fryer, frier] 2: young hen usually less than a year old