Gorokan: Senior Constable Graham David Tinworth pleads guilty to bizarre midnight shooting with homemade Sodastream air gun

A Central Coast police officer fired a homemade air rifle from the open window of his car in the dead of night, twice, and then tried to ditch the evidence when he was caught, a court has heard.

Graham Tinworth pointed the homemade rifle out the window of his car as he dove by and fired at the two Troop Carriers. (File image)

A 57-year-old Senior Constable has pleaded guilty to shooting two Toyota Troop Carriers with a homemade air rifle he had pointed out the window of his slow-moving car in a bizarre double drive-by, a court has heard.

Graham David Tinworth, of Wyongah, faced Gosford Local Court where he pleaded guilty to two counts of intentionally damaging property and two counts of firing a gun in public.

An agreed set of facts states the resident of a property across the road from the Wallarah Bay Recreation Club at Gorokan had his Toyota LandCruiser parked out the front when he woke up on the morning of January 2 and found his front window shattered and an 8mm ball bearing within the vehicle.

He reported it to police before he noticed his son’s Troop Carrier, which was also parked on the street, had its back passenger window smashed by another ball bearing.

“The victim gained access to CCTV footage of the incident,” the facts state.

The two Toyota LandCruiser Troop Carriers were parked across the road from Wallarah Bay Recreation Club when they were shot by Graham Tinworth. Picture: Google

“The CCTV footage depicts a silver Ford Territory BM-99-JY travelling east on Wallarah Rd. As it passes the victim’s Toyota Troop Carrier LandCruiser popping sounds can be heard and then the front driver’s window of the vehicle appears to shatter.”

The facts state “seven minutes later” the same Ford Territory drives past again from the other direction and further “popping sounds” are heard before the rear window of the other Troop Carrier shatters.

Tinworth went home from Wyong Police Station to get “his glasses” before he was arrested.

“On closer inspection there appears to be a long thin item protruding from the nearside window of the Ford Territory,” the facts state.

Police reviewed the footage and identified a male with a solid build as the driver and sole occupant of the Territory, which checks revealed was registered to Tinworth who lived a few minutes away on Kilpa Rd.

On January 3 the NSW Police Professional Standards Command was notified and deployed covert operatives to conduct surveillance.

About 10.20am Senior Constable Tinworth was seen to leave his work at Wyong Police Station and go home.

Police stopped to let him out so he could vomit behind this bus stop but he ditched the ball bearings in the long grass there instead. Picture: Google

The facts state he was contacted by a colleague who he told that he had gone home to get his glasses.

He was stopped on his way back to work and taken to Gosford Police Station.

However, on the way he complained he was about to throw up and the accompanying police stopped and let him out near a bus stop on Tuggerah Straight.

Tinworth went behind the bus stop and laid down on the ground and appeared to vomit but police could see him “fiddle with his hands at the front of his person”.

The officers didn’t say anything until they got him to Gosford where they told detectives who went back to the bus stop and found “two small plastic bags containing multiple silver coloured ball bearings” in the grass.

On January 31 police searched Tinworth’s home but couldn’t find anything until he told another officer that he’d made the weapon out of a piece of pipe and a Sodastream gas cylinder.

The two items were examined by a ballistic expert who categorised it as an “air gun”.

Tinworth faced court on March 22 where his lawyer successfully had the charges dismissed under mental health laws.

Tinworth was then diverted out of the criminal justice system and into the care of mental health professionals where he will have to undertake psychiatric treatment at hospital for alcohol abuse, post traumatic stress and depression for 12 months or until doctors deem it necessary.