Kesgrave schoolboy shooting: Teenager detained for attempted murder

Jacob Talbot-Lummis "ruthlessly executed" his plan to attack his victim, the judge said

A teenager who shot a boy in the face has been sentenced to 24 years in custody for attempted murder.

Jacob Talbot-Lummis, 16, wounded his victim, who was aged 15 at the time, as he was leaving home for school in Kesgrave, Suffolk, on 7 September 2020.

Judge Martyn Levett said Talbot-Lummis, who was obsessed with violent computer games, "ambushed" his victim and "didn't show any mercy or restraint".

The boy was left partially paralysed from the attack.

During the six-week trial at Ipswich Crown Court, jurors heard how Talbot-Lummis used a double-barrelled shotgun to attack the boy who he had been friends with since primary school.

Judge Levett said Talbot-Lummis had played a virtual reality computer game called Blood Trail the day before the close-range shooting.

A friend of the defendant said the game was "hyper-realistic in its violence", and that Talbot-Lummis "adores it".

Judge Levett told the defendant: "You had this obsessive interest in all kinds of firearms and had become entrenched in watching computer games online."

He said that playing such games "was a factor for the onset of violent fantasies you had".

The boy was shot in Kesgrave as he walked to school in September 2020

The court heard Talbot-Lummis lay in wait for more than an hour before attacking the boy as he made his way to school for the first day back after the summer holidays.

He had driven his father's car to Grange Farm and shot the victim with his grandad's over-and-under Beretta from a distance of less than 1.5m (5ft).

The defendant had denied attempted murder and four other charges, but admitted to possession of a shotgun with intent to cause fear of injury.

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It was heard he wanted to "scare" the boy, who he claimed had been bullying him and had caused him "humiliation and fear", but he said he fired the gun unintentionally.

After the shooting, police arrested Talbot-Lummis later that morning in Westwood Avenue in Ipswich.

Police said they had to smash the car window to get him out and he then made admissions of guilt to the arresting officers.

Jacob Talbot-Lummis was arrested after the attack on the first day back at school after the summer holidays

The shotgun used in the shooting was an over-and-under Beretta

The judge said Talbot-Lummis had "ruthlessly executed" his plan to attack his victim, who suffered "unimaginably serious injuries", still had flashbacks and continued to be "reliant on his family".

"The intention to kill wasn't formed on the spur of the moment," the judge said.

"This was all pre-planned and pre-meditated."

The judge said the defendant did not report his bullying claims to the school, and added: "I don't accept there was bullying of the scale or the degree suggested."

Police arrested Jacob Talbot-Lummis on the morning of the shooting

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Supt David Henderson, from Suffolk Police, said: "There is no doubt in my mind that Jacob Talbot-Lummis intended to kill the victim."

The court had heard Talbot-Lummis had a "haul" of lawfully-held BB guns in his bedroom, and Det Supt Henderson said the boy "had experience of using shotguns, so his claim that the gun fired accidentally seems extremely unlikely".

"The witness descriptions of his cold and calm manner following the shooting appear to reaffirm that firing the shotgun was indeed planned," he said.

"He did not check upon the victim or try to raise help - he simply coolly drove away, his plan fulfilled.

"Throughout the trial he continued this brazen and unfazed manner and has never once displayed remorse or concern for the victim."

Talbot-Lummis was told that on his release from custody he would spend a further five years on licence.