The Warning Shot

Two men in their early seventies had known each other for about a decade. The Accused lived in a trailer on a third party's rural property, where the complainant stored some of his belongings. One April day the complainant came to move his boat trailer. The Accused fired his shotgun. The complainant said the shot went off near where he was standing with the trailer; the Accused said it was a warning shot, not fired in the complainant's direction. A confrontation followed: the Accused wanted to leave, thought the complainant's truck was blocking the road, and got out of his own truck holding a knife. A neighbour witnessed part of the exchange, and there was voicemail evidence. A careless storage count had already been dealt with separately. On the contested counts he said he had been trying to make a man leave a property where he did not belong, and had never aimed at anyone.