Husband shot lock off front door as wife's new man jumped out of window
A jilted husband blasted the lock off the front door of a block of flats where his wife was with the new man in her life.
Ivan Walton - of previous good character - went to the address with a loaded shotgun for which he had been granted a licence, a judge heard.
The 56-year-old pressed the intercom button for the Wolverhampton city centre flats in Albion Street and opened fire after being refused entry by his wife Sharon, the city's Crown Court was told.
"She said it was not a good time for him to be there and he wasted no time in firing the shotgun at the lock of the communal door," said Mr Tariq Shakoor, prosecuting.
Three times married Walton, who had been drinking, held the weapon as he calmly walked up the stairs to where his wife could see him through her front door's 'peep hole,' it was said. He did not have a key for the property.
Meanwhile the 'other man' was making his escape after hearing the shotgun blast and climbed out of a window before scrambling to the ground.
Mrs Walton stood behind her closed front door while warning her husband he would kill her if pulled the trigger. "She thought she was about to die," continued the prosecutor.
But she let the defendant into the flat after persuading him to put down the gun and, once he was inside, offered to get the weapon for him.
This was just a ruse for her to get outside and flee with her 16-year-old daughter who had already phoned the police, revealed Mr Shakoor, who added: "She did not know if she was going to come out alive if she went back into the flat with the gun and so ran."
When Walton realised he had been left alone he returned to his Church Hill, Penn home where he was arrested soon afterwards.
The couple, who had been in a relationship for ten years and married for five, were living apart when it happened on July 2. She believed the marriage was finished, the court heard.
He was aware of his wife's affair but thought it was over until being 'verbally assaulted' by the other man in a phone call.
He went to find out what was happening armed with the gun for 'personal protection,' it was claimed.
Mr Anthony Haycroft, defending, said: "He accepts what he did was very serious and potentially dangerous. He is horrified and ashamed of his actions."
Walton admitted having a loaded shotgun in a public place and was jailed for two years by Judge John Wait, who said: "First you wanted your wife back and secondly you wanted her safe but you were in a highly charged state and that loaded weapon was very dangerous in your hands that night."
