Failing business dispute ends in shooting

Its root lay in a failed fish and chip business.

Following the death of her brother, it came into the possession of Annie Montgomery.

Sadly she and her husband parted shortly afterwards.

Whether it was the collapse of the marriage or because of difficulties in managing the shop, Montgomery became addicted to drink and the business was taken over by Fanstone who retained her as bookkeeper.

His patience evaporated and he warned her that unless she reformed, he would have to sack her.

Her drinking unfortunately worsened and a month later he carried out his threat.

She moved to Eastleigh but suddenly one night on August 12, 1898, she unexpectedly returned, rushed past Fanstone who had been standing in the doorway and ran into the office.

“I have come for money and money I will have,” she demanded Fanstone was unmoved.

“You have had all the money you will get from me. You have no right to be here.”

Montgomery then opened her handbag and produced a revolver which she pointed at his face.

Hearing the commotion, his wife came into the office and asked what the matter was.

“I don’t know,” her husband replied, whereupon Montgomery then directed the pistol at his wife, bawling: “I will shoot you and your husband.”

“Then I will get the police,” Mrs Fanstone coolly countered but no sooner had she stepped out of the shop, then she heard the revolver being fired.

Fanstone had his back to Montgomery at the time but after he turned to face her, she fired three more shots “I cannot recollect any more,” he was to tell magistrates. In fact, he had fainted with blood pouring down his arm.

William Laird, who ran a hairdressers close by, had just locked up for the night when he heard the gunfire and ran to the shop, shocked at what he was witnessing.

“I said to Mrs Montgomery: ‘Oh, I am sorry’ but all she said was: ‘They are robbing me and my children.’”

PC Henry Davies was on patrol when he heard the shooting. The revolver was still clenched in her hands when he arrived and was pointing it at the glass door of the living room.

The revolver went off with a loud click but did not explode.

He took the gun off her and arrested her for attempted murder but her reply was hardly one of contrition.

“I am only sorry it is not worse.”

At the Ascupart Street police station, she was searched and in her handbag, the officer recovered nine ball cartridges, similar to the two still undischarged in the revolver.

Fanstone was only hit once in the arm and was treated in an adjacent room in the shop by a local doctor who was satisfied his injuries were minimal.

Naturally news of the shooting rapidly spread in the district and hundreds of people converged on the scene to loiter outside the premises, ignoring harassed police pleas to move on.

PICTURED: Eley pinfire revolver rounds similar to those that would have been used in the shooting

Bobbies were reticent to reveal information to the Hampshire Independent reporter, and one angry constable simply told him: “See the inspector,” however the inspector was with the victim who had since been escorted to the infirmary.

A bystander did tell him: “The funny thing was that one of the shots was fired close to Mr Fanstone but he did not seem to lift his hand or avoid it.”

Montgomery offered no defence at the committal proceedings the following day and she was sent for trial in custody to Hampshire Assizes, appearing before Mr Justice Kennedy on November 19.

The indictment had then been altered to ‘feloniously shooting with a loaded pistol at Albert Fanstone with intent, wilfully and with malice aforethought to kill and murder him’.

But in opening his case, the prosecutor told jurors that if they were satisfied she had not used the firearm with intent but only to frighten, it enabled them to return a verdict that she was guilty of unlawful wounding.

They heard Montgomery had purchased the revolver for 17s 6d from an Eastleigh pawnbroker hours before the shooting, telling the shopkeeper she had wanted it to give it to a neighbour as a present so he could shoot sharks on his voyage to South Africa.

However, he had not not supplied her with cartridges.

Fanstone duly recounted the same evidence he had placed before the magistrates, maintaining she had deliberately fired at him.

He told jurors how she had had approached him for financial assistance after she had walked out on her marriage, and he gave her money from time to time out of pure friendship.

“She complained to me she was turned out of her business and was entitled to more money. and that night in August I was not surprised she was asking for more money.”

Fanstone said the elbow wound still hurt him but he bore her no ill-will.

“I don’t want her punished. I require protection.”

Montgomery, a mother of two, told the court how she had got into money difficulties and approached Fanstone to take over the shop’s management and if things went well, she would make him a partner but he had persistently refused to give her money which she claimed he owed her.

“I went to the shop to get money and establish it was my business and I would frighten him out of it by firing the revolver but I solemnly swear I never intended to shoot him.

If he had not raised his arm, I would not have hit him because I was shooting wide purposely.”

Jurors, after some discussion, convicted her of shooting with intent to frighten but not to murder.

The judge deferred sentence until the Monday morning.

Then he told her: “You used a deadly weapon and you might have killed two persons.

“Fortunately no harm came to them. The jury have adopted the most merciful course in saying you did not intend to murder or cause grievous bodily harm.

"Nothing can be more dangerous than a pistol, loaded with ball, in the hands of of person like you and firing it as you did.”

However, the judge accepted it was an act which she most unlikely would repeat and her victim had not been badly hurt.

“Under the circumstances, you will be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for four months.”

Montgomery immediately collapsed and fell back fainting, and had to be led to the cells below sobbing hysterically.