Hayden Fenton found not guilty of manslaughter by criminal negligence over shooting death of his friend Bailey Davenport in Parawa Forest
A man who accidentally shot and killed his friend has been found not guilty of manslaughter by criminal negligence after a two-week Supreme Court trial.
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A Victor Harbor man who accidentally shot his friend in the head with a century-old rifle has been found not guilty of manslaughter.
Hayden Dove Fenton, 30, walked from court a free man after almost three years of legal proceedings after a jury acquitted him of the manslaughter by criminal negligence of his friend Bailey Davenport in Parawa Forest on July 23, 2017.
The jury did not find that Mr Fenton had consciously pointed the gun towards Mr Davenport when it went off, killing the 21-year-old father when they were camping in a paddock.
The group used a century-old Winchester rifle to shoot at a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Mr Davenport went with his partner and small child to cut firewood about 50m using a chainsaw.
Hayden Fenton has left court after being acquitted of the manslaughter by criminal negligence of Bailey Davenport in Parawa Forest in 2017. He still faces firearm possession charges for the rifle which killed Mr Davenport. @theTiser pic.twitter.com/qT22UsDWCc
— Mitch Mott (@MitchMottTiser) March 4, 2020
The court heard that Mr Fenton was holding the gun when it went off, hitting Mr Davenport in the side of the head.
The bullet entered his skull and lodged on the opposite side of his head.
He dropped the chainsaw and Ms Arends-Watson started screaming, alerting the others at the camp.
The group rushed the stricken man to hospital, battling to get the cars up a dirt track which was slippery following rain that morning.
Mr Davenport was taken to Victor Harbor Hospital but later died from his injury.
Marie Shaw QC, acting for Fenton, told the jury during her closing statement that the evidence presented by the prosecution did not prove her client had been negligent beyond all reasonable doubt
“People going about their lives make mistakes, but that is not manslaughter,” she said.
“It is an accident because no one expected that to happen.”
She focused on inconsistencies in the evidence of Mr Davenport’s cousin Mitchell and another friend, Fletcher Teague, both of whom had been at the campsite when the gun went off.
The court had heard that the rifle which killed Mr Davenport was in such poor condition that a fired shell casing had to be removed from the gun manually.
The only way of doing that was to remove it using a fingernail.
Mr Teague said he had seen Mr Fenton trying to remove one of the shells.
“The only one of the three boys and the girl at the campsite to have no fingernails, to have dead set stumps, was Mr Fenton,” Mrs Shaw said.
“He would not have been able to remove the casing.”
Mr Fenton has pleaded guilty to possessing the firearm and will face the Supreme Court again in two weeks.
