Hamish Meany jailed for firing gun at group of men on suburban Port Lincoln street

A man followed a group of men, including his friend who had come to collect a debt, before aiming a sawn-off .22 in their direction and shooting. But he said he only meant to scare them.

A man who owed a debt to a former friend threatened to “shoot him and pump him full of lead” before later firing a gun at him in a suburban street, a court has heard.

Hamish Meany, 20, was at home when he spotted four men, including the friend he owed money, arrive at his Port Lincoln home on CCTV on November 26 last year.

Without answering, he watched them leave before exiting through a back door and into his car with a sawn-off .22. As he drove past the group he held the gun outside his window, motioned it at the men and fired.

In sentencing in the District Court, Judge Julie McIntyre said the men heard the “loud gunshot”, leapt over a fence and fled.

“Police subsequently found a large bullet hole in the cement wall of a neighbouring property, a spent .22 calibre round in your garage and another live round of .22 ammunition,” she said.

Judge McIntyre said she could “only imagine how frightening this experience must have been” for the four men.

“In the lead-up to the offence, you sent a few threatening messages to (the former friend), including messages in which you threatened to shoot him and pump him full of lead,” she said.

“I accept that you panicked when you saw the four men and that you did not intend to shoot anyone and that were merely trying to scare them away.

“However, they were not to know that, particularly in the context of previous text messages that you had sent.”

The man said he only meant to scare the group – not shoot them.

Judge McIntyre told Meany discharging a live round of ammunition in a suburban area was “incredibly dangerous”.

“It is extremely fortunate, to say the last, that no-one was injured or even killed,” she said.

The gun used in the incident was never recovered and Meany told police he had burned and disposed of the remainder at sea.

Meany, who did not have a license for the gun, pleaded guilty to charge of discharging a firearm intending to frighten a person. He also pleaded guilty to another ammunition charge and hindering police over a separate incident when police searched his home eight days earlier.

Judge McIntyre said Meany had a “very traumatic upbringing” and suffered “significant untreated mental health issues”.

After discounts for his pleas, she jailed Meany, who has been in custody since his arrest last December, to two years, four months and six days in prison. She imposed a non-parole period of one year and three months, making Meany eligible for parole in March 2023.