A TEENAGER who threatened to kill a father and son and then their family with a sawn-off shotgun is today beginning a three-year sentence behind bars.
Jurors took less than one hour to find Charlie Rockett, 18, guilty of subjecting Paul Bryan and his son Sam to a terrifying ordeal with the deadly weapon.
During a three-day trial they heard how Rockett approached the pair as they shifted furniture from a block of flats in Kingsdown Way, in Townhill, Southampton, in October.
For no apparent reason he accused Sam of “disrespecting him” before becoming furious when he refused to apologise.
The gunman then warned he would blow Sam’s head off and when his dad tried to calm him down Rockett extended the threat to the whole family.
Paul Bryan asked why he needed the gun and was told it was because he was a drug dealer and once shot someone in the knee.
Jurors heard how he then gestured from a stairwell window to a passing woman with a pushchair, boasting how he could shoot her if he pleased.
Seconds later police arrived.
Panicking, Rockett hid the gun, before trying to escape.
But challenged at gunpoint by armed police, he dropped to his knees and put his hand to his head. He was then arrested.
Sentencing, Judge Patrick Hooton told him: “You had no defence – everyone saw you with the shotgun. You must have known that the writing was on the wall for you.
“First of all you put other people in fear of their lives, and secondly, as a weapon, if it gets into the wrong hands it can cause death or serious injury.
“And the fact was that you had been drinking all day and, with a sense of bravado, you turned up thinking you could frighten everything in sight.
“Now you have to pay the price because having a sawn-off shotgun always gets a substantial prison sentence.”
Throughout the trial, Rockett, of no fixed address, denied possessing a gun without a certificate and affray and passed the chance to defend himself.
But after being found guilty he admitted hiding the gun for someone else – although he would not say who. Defence barrister Susan Ridge said: “Perhaps he is scared of the consequence if he does.”
She said drink and drugs had a large role in his behaviour.
