Leeds man who kept deadly Airbow weapon under his bed shot his dad through the chest with a crossbow during row over plate of pasta
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Jaspal Marwaha, 26, was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act this week after a 'landmark conviction' over the deadly weapon found under his bed at his home in Leeds.
A jury heard Marwaha was able to buy the weapon on the internet without a firearms certificate.The YEP reported in 2013 how Marwaha, then a teenager, fired a crossbow bolt at his dad as he lay in bed with his wife at their family home in Leeds.
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Hide AdMr Marwaha managed to pull the metal bolt, which had travelled at 140mph, from his chest and escaped serious injury after it missed vital organs.
His son was due to go on trial for attempted murder but the Crown Prosecution Service accepted his plea of guilty to unlawful wounding.
The CPS accepted Marwaha’s basis of plea that the row was not connected to the shooting incident, which he claimed happened accidentally after he tripped while carrying out “target practice”
Leeds Crown Court was told the teenager was heavily drunk when he discharged the weapon on May 29, 2013.
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Hide AdProsecutor Nigel Wray said his mother had made pasta for the evening meal and her son came downstairs to collect it.
Mr Wray said an argument began when the teenager insisted his father should eat more than he had done.
During the row he punched his mother in the back before returning to his room.
The teenager entered his parents’ bedroom two hours later and discharged the bolt from the crossbow.
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Hide AdThe Crown accepted the basis of his plea that the bolt was discharged recklessly, not deliberately.
Mr Marwaha was taken to hospital but survived after the bolt missed his vital organs. He went home two days after the attack.
Police officers arrested the teenager at his then home in Harehills Avenue, Chapeltown.
His speech appeared to be rambling and incoherent and he complained about concentration camps and being treated inhumanely by Nazis.
Marwaha was jailed for just 12 months for the offence.
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Hide AdSentencing at the time, Mr Justice Keith said: “It is difficult to think of anything more dangerous than using a lethal weapon like a crossbow in a confined area like your own home.
“I appreciate that you say that you were using it at the time only for target practice and the bolt was only released when you tripped.
"But what happened to your father is precisely the reason why you should not have been doing what you did.”
The judge added: “You have what many people might regard as an unhealthy interest in weapons.”
Kama Melly, mitigating, said her client had achieved good GCSEs, but had not worked or continued his education.
He had developed an interest in weapons in 2011 when he was taken clay pigeon shooting.