Kesgrave schoolboy shooting trial: Accused 'had sleepovers with victim'

The shooting took place shortly after the victim left his home on the first day of the new school year

A teenager accused of shooting a 15-year-old boy in the face as he walked to school had been to sleepovers with the injured boy, a court heard.

The 16-year-old, who cannot be named, is on trial at Ipswich Crown Court after another boy was wounded in Kesgrave, Suffolk, on 7 September.

The injured boy's mother told the court the accused "had been to our house a number of times over the years".

The defendant denies attempted murder and four other charges.

Jurors heard the victim was airlifted to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where he was left with "devastating and life-changing injuries" after suffering a stroke and had been "partially paralysed".

The injured boy's mother said he and the defendant had met at primary school.

In a police interview played to the court, she said her son had been "excited" to return to school and on that morning he was "in the brightest and most pleasant of form".

The mother of the injured boy said she told her son "you're going to be OK"

She said after he left for school she heard a "huge bang", then saw her son on the ground injured and a youth stood nearby with a gun in his hand.

"He held the gun up to me," the injured boy's mother said.

"I was screaming, 'What have you done?'."

She said the youth "held the gun up with a very kind of smug" look about him and did not say anything, "but the face was like a righteous, 'I've done it now,' sort of thing".

The mother called it a "very significant gesture".

She said afterwards the boy got into the driver's side of a parked car, taking the weapon with him, and drove away "in a very orderly fashion".

She then held her son's shoulder and told him "you're going to be OK", she said.

Defence barrister, Diana Ellis QC, said to the injured boy's mother: "I'm suggesting to you that there was a conversation between you and [the defendant's mother] about the fact [the accused] was saying he had been bullied by your son."

The woman replied: "I can't recall it was anything significant and I know if it was I would have acted on it."

Jurors were shown messages sent from the accused's Snapchat account to the injured boy about a week before the shooting.

In a series of messages, the defendant's account wrote: "How is my fav little fatty doing/ Answer/ Me/ Boy/ Mmmmm so you have chosen death."

The trial continues.