The jury in the trial of a teenager accused of shooting a 15-year-old schoolboy in the face in Kesgrave has been given preliminary legal direction by the trial judge as the case enters its final stages.

Last week the jury heard the 16-year-old give evidence in the case and this week the jury will hear closing speeches from prosecution counsel Riel Karmy-Jones QC and defence counsel Diana Ellis QC, before Judge Martyn Levett sums up the case.

Today (Monday, June 14) Judge Levett gave the jury some preliminary legal directions and a document outlining the route to verdicts before adjourning the case until tomorrow (Tuesday, June 15).

During his evidence last week, the defendant claimed he had only intended to scare the boy to teach him a lesson for humiliating and bullying him and hadn’t intended to shoot him.

The accused, who cannot be named because of his age, has denied attempted murder, possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and possessing a shotgun with intent to cause fear of violence.

It has been alleged that the victim was deliberately shot as he was walking to Kesgrave High School where he was a pupil.

A friend later told police that the teenager had been planning the attack for a year but he had wrongly assumed he was joking.

The court has heard that on September 7 last year the defendant took his grandfather’s shotgun and drove to Friends Walk in his father’s car and lay in wait for more than an hour before shooting the victim, who suffered life-changing injuries.