Boy who accidentally shot best friend dead while playing with revolver locked up for five years



Detained for five years: Dean Eastham claimed his victim Lewis O'Brien had brought the gun to his house, which was disputed by Lewis's family and the police

A schoolboy obsessed with guns from the age of 12 accidentally shot dead his best friend while fooling around with a loaded revolver in his bedroom, a court heard yesterday.

Baby-faced Dean Eastham, 16, killed Lewis O'Brien, 17, shortly after the wannabe gangsters, dressed in black balaclavas and gloves, posed for 'sinister' photographs holding the banned weapon.

As Eastham was locked up for five years today, police said the case highlighted the fatal and tragic consequences of young children playing with guns.

They urged parents on Britain's estates to keep a close eye on their sons after it emerged that Eastham had developed an unhealthy interest in firearms at a young age.

Aged just 12, Eastham, who smoked cannabis every day from the age of 14, received a police reprimand after holding up and threatening a newsagent with a ball bearing gun.

Detective Chief Inspector Richard Carr said: 'The dangers of young people fooling around with loaded firearms are obvious.

'From a young age Dean Eastham was associating with firearms and there is a culture among certain sections of society that firearms are acceptable; but they are not.

'Parents need to be mindful if their children have access to BB guns or air rifles that they don't lead onto more dangerous weapons.'

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the shooting on January 27 this year happened when Eastham, Lewis and a 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, gathered at Eastham's house, in the Huyton district of Liverpool - an area plagued by gangs and gun crime.

The trio began smoking marijuana before Eastham produced the banned Ruger revolver he had been given to 'look after', which he stored in a fishing trolley in his back garden.

Brendan Carville, prosecuting, told the court that the boys posed for mobile phone photographs holding the gun and Eastham started joking and waving the gun around, saying 'Give us your money'.

But unbeknown to the trio, the gun was loaded. It went off, shooting Lewis at close range in the heart.

As his friend lay bleeding on the floor, Eastham, who has other convictions for car crime and was in breach of an interim ASBO at the time of the killing, fled the scene and went on the run.

He disposed of his clothing and the gun, which has never been found.

Eastham eventually handed himself in and confessed to police five days later.

However, he claimed that Lewis had brought the gun to his home, a fact disputed by police and Lewis's family - who shouted 'liar' towards Eastham as details of the case were recounted in court.

In interview, Eastham also said that the gun had gone off when Lewis tried to grapple it from his grip, although, the hearing was told, there was no forensic evidence to support this claim.

Police outside the house where Lewis O'Brien was shot dead by his best friend Dean Eastham as they played with a loaded gun

Yesterday Judge Henry Globe, QC, the recorder of Liverpool, sentenced Eastham to five years detention after the teenager pleaded guilty to manslaughter, possession of an illegal firearm and attempting to pervert the course of justice by disposing of his clothing and the gun.

He told Eastham: 'Instead of being fearful of the gun you were play acting with it and pretending to be big. Only this was no toy gun, it was a real gun.



'The disturbing feature of the photographs is that they portray an element of perceived glamour derived from holding a real gun.

'However, you had not taken the basic precaution of checking that it wasn't loaded and the inevitable happened.'

The judge accepted that Eastham had never intended to harm Lewis but stressed that 'considerable pressure' would have been needed to pull the trigger.

Referring to the gun, the judge added: 'You know what happened to it. By your actions it remains available by another to kill, maim or injure other people.'

In a statement Lewis' 'heartbroken' parents, Mark O'Brien and Shirley Spendlove, who are separated, said their world had been shattered by their son's death.

'Words cannot express the pain we feel and there will never be fitting justice for our son Lewis,' they said. 'His life was cruelly and prematurely taken away and our lives will never be the same.'





