A man who used a shotgun during an argument between two families of travellers has been jailed for seven years.

Steven Turner fired the weapon at long-distance lorry driver Joshua Webster during a showdown at the Snowdown Caravan Site near Dover in May – causing life-threatening injuries.

The 42-year-old Turner became embroiled in the argument – which also ended with the victim being squirted in the face with ammonia.

Prosecutor Daniel Bunting told Canterbury Crown Court how two families fell out over allegations of stone throwing.

Mr Webster’s partner, mum-of-three Tina Hilden claimed that when she complained it culminated in accusations of death threats and her being threatened with a meat cleaver.

Mr Bunting said the victim was away working but returned the following night and decided his partner and family should stay with friends in Essex.

Mr Webster parked his lorry at Thurrock Services in Essex and was then joined by three friends returning to the caravan park just after midnight.

“The intention was to quietly collect his partner and their three children and to leave. Mrs Hilden and the children were waiting near the site entrance.

“There then came the sound of shouting and abuse further down the roadway and Mr Webster is reported to have said he wanted a one on one fight with the man who had threatened his wife with a meat cleaver," the prosecutor said.

Mr Bunting said that during the fracas a man shouted: “Ere, have some of that” before squirting ammonia into Mr Webster’s face.

“Steven Turner was then seen holding a shotgun which he levelled at Mr Webster and fired, hitting him in the front of his left leg. He was then loaded into a car and driven straight to hospital, “ he added.

The victim was then taken to the Medway Maritime Hospital before being transferred to King’s College Hospital in London.

A consultant ophthalmologist said the ammonia had left Mr Webster at that time with “no useful vision and a risk of severe loss of sight in the eye.”

Mr Bunting added that the the leg wound was regarded by a consultant surgeon at King’s Hospital “as limb threatening and potentially life threatening which required urgent surgical treatment”.

Turner, now of Wife Of Bath Hill, Canterbury Road, Canterbury, pleaded guilty to two charges of causing grievous bodily harm.

Mr Bunting said other gun shots were heard during the night and the weapon has never been recovered by police.

Christopher Harding, defending, claimed that there had a been “a measure of provocation” but Turner now felt “genuine remorse over his part”.

Judge Nigel Van Der Bijl told him: “Although I accept there was clearly a level of provocation that can never justify you resorting to using a shotgun.”

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