Terrified neighbour sees man wearing only swimming trunks toting a shotgun in the street

A horrified woman called police out after spotting her neighbour lugging a loaded shotgun in the street in just his swimming trunks after a night on the Prosecco with his partner.

The startled woman, who was in bed, looked out of her window after hearing screams and saw 25-year-old Thomas Atkinson dressed in blue swimming pants and with a Benelli 12-bore shotgun strapped across his chest outside his home in Pickering, York Crown Court heard.

She called police after hearing a “blazing row” and seeing Atkinson’s partner – bare-footed, wearing a dressing gown and “in high dudgeon” – running in the street and dashing back to the house as Atkinson, a gamekeeper, went back inside with what she described as a “long-barrelled rifle”, said prosecutor Rob Galley.

When police arrived, they found Atkinson relaxing in the hot tub in his garden. When asked why he had been toting a gun wearing just his trunks, he told them he was about to go lamping after having a row with his partner.

Atkinson said he had gone outside to put the gun in his works pick-up truck on the driveway and then went back inside the house to put his camouflage gear on.

Mr Galley said Atkinson had been in the hot tub with his partner, drinking Prosecco, when an argument broke out at about midnight on June 17.

When police arrived, Atkinson was back in the tub. They searched his home and found a loaded shotgun in the kitchen or living room, next to a cot blanket and a children’s toy, and two loaded firearms, including a bolt-action rifle, in two open, unlocked gun cabinets in an upstairs bedroom.

Atkinson, the father of two young children, was arrested and charged with having a loaded shotgun in a public place, two counts of failing to comply with the conditions of a firearms certificate and one count of failure to comply with the requirements of a shotgun certificate. He admitted all four offences and appeared for sentence on Thursday.

Got out of the hot tub

Atkinson, who works as a gamekeeper for Westfield Farms Ltd in Pickering, told the court he had rented a hot tub for the weekend for him and his partner to “enjoy spending some time together” during a stressful time.

They had an argument after Atkinson was accused of “involvement” with another woman, at which he stormed out of the house with the loaded gun, which had a night-vision scope and thermal imaging.

He said he just wanted to “get out of the way” and let his partner “calm down”.

“I’d only just got out of the hot tub and I had some trainers on,” he added.

Atkinson insisted his intention was to go lamping but then his wife came running out of the front door and he went back inside after a minute or two at which point the argument “simmered down”.  

Their next-door neighbour, who heard “screaming and shouting”, said she saw Atkinson’s partner running back to the house “shouting something like, ‘I’ll get that car’.”

When asked why he was wearing swimming trunks while carrying a loaded gun, with the intention of going lamping, Atkinson replied: “To be honest, I don’t know; probably through the heat of the moment.”

Almost bolshy

The neighbour, who was named in court, said Atkinson appeared “determined but in control, but almost bolshy”.

Atkinson, of Lendales, Pickering, was said to be compliant with officers when they turned up at about 12.30am and found the guns.

 Mr Galley said there were no keys for either of the gun cabinets as they had apparently been left inside Atkinson’s main vehicle when he took it in for repair three days earlier.

James Bourne-Arton, mitigating, said Atkinson “appreciates that there is no good explanation for his actions with a shotgun that night”.

He said Atkinson had owned a gun licence since his teens and had never been in trouble before.

Character references from colleagues “spoke volumes” about his reputation as a “trusted, hard-working man”.

Judge Sean Morris said he was prepared to accept what Atkinson had said in the witness box but that he had made a “stupid” decision to go outside with a loaded gun in his trunks, which had “alarmed” his neighbour.

He said he could steer away from a custodial sentence because Atkinson was the main breadwinner for his family, was of otherwise “good character” and “this was not a gun taken out to threaten”. Atkinson was given a two-year community order with 200 hours’ unpaid work and ordered to pay £420 prosecution costs.