Crabtree murder trial: Gun was fired through car window, forensic scientist tells jury

A jury has been told a gun, which fired a shot that killed a drugs courier in Peterborough as he sat in his car, was fired through the window.

Mihai Dobre died when he suffered a gunshot wound to the head in the early hours of April 13 last year.

Peterborough Crown Court has heard he was delivering drugs in Crabtree, Paston, and was sitting in his car when the fatal incident happened.

Lewis Hutchinson has pleaded guilty to Mr Dobre’s manslaughter, but denies murder and conspiracy to rob.

On Thursday, the trial heard from forensic scientist Robert Griffiths, an expert in firearms.

He told the jury: “The injury, in my opinion, was caused by a single discharge of a 12 bore shotgun.”

Mr Griffiths said shotgun cartridges normally contained around 70-75 pellets in them.

When asked where the shot was fired from, he said he believed the shot had been fired through an object, as the distribution of the pellets appeared to show their flight had been disrupted.

He said: “I believe the shot was fired through the rear window, through the glass.

“As the shot goes through an object, it will disrupt the pattern. We have here, I believe, a disrupted pattern.

“In my opinion, the shot was fired somewhere in the vicinity of the rear quarter of the car.”

Mr Griffiths said analysis of the ‘wad’ that is fired out of the gun as the pellets are shot, showed there were a number of scratches, which could have been caused by ‘burs’ at the end of the gun if the the end had been sawn off, that indicated the gun may have been shortened.

However, he was also asked if they could have been caused if the gun had not been looked after.

He said it was possible.

Mr Griffiths said it was hard to say how high the gun was being held at the time the shot was fired.

He said the way the glass was smashed indicated the gun was no higher than 136cm from the ground when it was fired.

The gun itself has never been found, and the cartridge has also not been recovered.

Mr Griffiths told the jury it was therefore impossible to say what type of gun it was.

He said: “It was a 12 bore shotgun, but it could be a single or double barrelled gun, pump action or self loading.”

He also said he was not able to say if there was a safety catch on the gun.

He said it was also impossible to say if the cartridge had been taken away from the scene still in the gun, or if it had been dropped and picked up.

Mr Griffiths also told the court that modern guns tended to need a pressure of three pounds to pull the trigger - he said using a light switch needed about two pounds of pressure.

Hutchinson, 29, of Eastern Avenue, Peterborough, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and not guilty to murder and conspiracy to rob.

The trial is set to continue on Monday, January 30.