A MAN pointed a handgun at the head of a teenage boy and threatened to shoot him after mistakenly thinking he had been called a paedophile.
Gary Blenkinsop, 32, was standing by his car in Mill Street, Hull city centre, when he saw a group of teenagers and heard someone call out "paedo".
He shouted: "Are you talking about me?"
When they did not reply, he pulled a semi-automatic handgun from a white carrier bag in the boot of his Mercedes and ran after the 17-year-old boy who had made the remark.
He then placed the weapon to the side of the terrified boy's head and shouted "Do you want me to shoot you? Don't think I'm scared to do it, I'm not scared to shoot".
Hull Crown Court heard Blenkinsop had been wrongly labelled a paedophile by people living around him after he had been falsely accused of asking a 16- year-old girl for a relationship.
On January 13, the 17-year-old boy was with a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy at about 7.40pm when he shouted the insult at his friend as a joke.
Prosecutor Jharna Jobes said Blenkinsop ran up behind the boy and was a foot away from him when the teenager turned round.
She said: "He was holding a gun and aimed it towards his head and, with his arm outstretched, made contact with the boy's left temple.
"The boy was scared and panicking."
Blenkinsop then returned to his car and fired a shot at the ground.
In her statement, the 14-year-old girl said: "My friend was shouting 'Help, get him off me, there's a gun at my head'. He sounded petrified."
The group called the police, who located Blenkinsop and searched his home but were unable to find the weapon.
A month later, they discovered Blenkinsop had buried the gun after approaching his partner's cousin Ashley Larvin in an attempt to persuade him to take the blame.
He offered to pay him £5,000 on his release from prison if he would "take the rap" for the crime.
Blenkinsop, of Arnold Lane West, Long Riston, told Mr Larvin, 19, he would lose his children unless he helped him.
Mrs Jobes said: "The defendant started to dig and Mr Larvin saw a carrier bag with a gun in it.
"The defendant made him touch the gun so that there would be evidence that he handled to gun and was the one responsible for firing it.
"He said Blenkinsop made him fire the gun so there was residue from the gunshot on his hands."
Blenkinsop then marched the teenager to his solicitors and told them Mr Larvin wanted to confess.
The court heard Mr Larvin changed his mind and told Blenkinsop the teenage victim knew him and would have known he was not the shooter.
Blenkinsop pleaded guilty to possessing an imitation firearm, namely a blank-firing 8mm semi-automatic hand gun, and to carrying out an act intending to pervert the course of justice.
His barrister John Thackray said it was obvious Blenkinsop would be facing a jail sentence.
"It all hit him extremely hard," said Mr Thackray. "He is a family man with two children.
"You will wonder why a man with very limited background would get involved in something like this."
The lawyer said there had been a "significant amount of provocation" in the build-up to the attack.
Mr Thackray said: "He was said to have approached a 16-year-old girl. It was said that he asked her for a relationship, which was not true, but others in the local area decided they would then label him a paedophile.
"There are not many insults more unpleasant than that. This insult gathered momentum and he was being called a paedophile morning, noon and night. He says that he decided he would try to put a stop to it.
"Of course he should have called the police but he just snapped. His only intention was to frighten the complainant.
"He accepts it must have been a terrifying and very unpleasant incident.
"He set about this clearly doomed enterprise to ask this young man to take the blame, detection was inevitable."
When he was arrested, Blenkinsop drew the police a map of where the gun would be found.
The honorary Recorder of Hull and the East Riding Judge Michael Mettyear jailed Blenkinsop for three years.
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