Court slashed sentence for David Jeffers from 10 years to eight-and-a-half years

A man has had his sentence cut for shooting a woman in the vagina when a sex game went wrong, on appeal.
David Andrew Jeffers had a drink and drug-fuelled sex session with a woman that ended  disasterously  in January 2017.
Jeffers, 48, and the 46-year-old were engaged in sexual activity with a shotgun at the at the Britannia Hotel in Offerton, Stockport. But the antique shotgun went off while it was inside her so he ran away,
Responding officers arrived at the scene they found the victim in a pool of blood and suffering from serious abdominal injuries. She was taken to hospital and required extensive surgery, police said.
Jeffers fled home to Leeds, leaving the victim with the “catastrophic” injuries. He dumped the gun at the Britannia hotel and changed his appearance by cutting off his dreadlocks.
He was tracked down to Yorkshire by police and pled guilty at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester in August 2017.
His lawyers argued at the Court of Appeal on Thursday that the 10-year sentence was excessive.
At the initial trial it was revealed that Jeffers had messaged the woman before they met, referring to ‘dat ting you want up ya’. – They also discussed her fantasy of having a loaded gun placed in her vagina.
He was subsequently convicted and sent to jailed 10 years for the incident.
In cutting  his sentence from 10 years to eight and a half, Mr Justice Morris ruled that he had been hard done by and didn’t have the gun to commit a crime and that the woman was up for the ‘dangerous act’.

The disastrous date happened at the Britannia Hotel in Offerton, Stockport in the UK

The incident caused ‘catastrophic’ and ‘life-changing’ internal injuries, which had had a ‘devastating’ impact on the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Cutting the sentence, the judge continued: ‘On any view, his conduct here was extremely reckless and, by his plea, he accepted that it was his intention to endanger life.
‘Nevertheless, in our view, there are a number of factors which lead us to the conclusion that this sentence was excessive.
‘A sentence of the sort which the judge gave is, in our judgment, the sort of sentence that may be more likely to be imposed for possession of a gun in the context of serious criminal activity.
‘In this case, the context was a consensual sexual encounter. There was no background of criminality.
‘Secondly, this isn’t a case of the possession of a conventional modern gun. It was something like a functioning antique pistol with the least lethal in the range of shotgun pellets.
‘He wasn’t in possession of the gun for the purpose of committing a criminal offence. There was no hostility between the parties. She was party to the dangerous act.
‘Taking account of all of the factors, we consider that the appropriate sentence after guilty plea in this case would have been one of eight-and-a-half years.’