A JURY in the trial of a man accused of threatening another man with an imitation firearm has retired to consider its verdicts.
Billy Wildgoose, 25, denies two charges and has been on trial at Carlisle Crown Court this week. One charge alleges the possession of an imitation firearm – a Walther CP 88 air pistol – with intent to cause fear of violence. A second charge alleges that Wildgoose did an act – posting a police interview transcript extract on Facebook, in April this year – tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.
Jurors have seen an interview given to police by Tyler Wilson. He alleged Wildgoose approached his car and produced the firearm – which, he said, looked like a “real gun” – from a pocket while he sat in the driver’s seat as the pair met at Siddick, near Workington, in September, 2017. “He pulled it out and put it next to my head,” Mr Wilson alleged to police. “He said he wasn’t scared to use it.”
Wildgoose, of Hunday Court, Workington, told the jury in evidence that the men met after Mr Wilson expressed an interest in buying the pistol during a phone call. Wildgoose admitted taking it out of his pocket during their encounter, but said he then put it back after Mr Wilson stated he didn’t want to purchase anything from him.
“The gun never made contact with Tyler,” Wildgoose insisted. “It wasn’t pointed in any threatening way.”
Neither, he said, had he intended to pervert the course of justice – nor intimidate – by posting the interview transcript extract on Facebook.
After hearing barristers’ closing speeches this morning (WED), and a summing up of the case by Judge James Adkin, the jury of eight men and four women retired to begin deliberations.
