A Christchurch teenager has been jailed for three years and three months for his involvement in a central city shooting incident.
Casey Aaron Mike Gathergood is now aged 19, but he was 17 at the time of the incident.
The court was told Gathergood was driving a car when his friend fired a gun into the front of another car in Salisbury Street on July 20.
He admitted charges of burglary, unlawful possession of a gun, and firing it with reckless disregard for the safety of the four young people who were in the other car.
The shooter, his friend Jacob Oscar Murray who was also aged 17 at the time, went to jail for three years four months at an earlier sentencing.
Gathergood pleaded guilty later and was to go before a disputed facts hearing over the crown's allegation that he had positioned the car at an angle so that Murray could fire the shot.
Today, crown prosecutor Anna MacGougan said the crown did not proceed with that allegation but it still said Gathergood was an integral part of the offending.
After an incident with another car in the city earlier in the evening, he had driven Murray to Rolleston so that he could pick up the shotgun, which had been stashed after being stolen in a burglary.
He had then deliberately driven back into the city to look for the other car, with Murray sitting next to him, holding the shotgun and pointing it out the window, she said.
Defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger urged that a home detention sentence be imposed. She said Gathergood was now living with his parents and the address was available for him to serve a home detention term there.
Christchurch District Court Judge Brian Callaghan rejected Gathergood's assertion in a letter to the court that he had acted under duress or coercion from his co-offender. "I don't accept that you were anything but a willing participant to go back into town," he said.
The pre-sentence report highlighted difficulties in his adolescence and problems with alcohol. His parents, who were at court for every appearance, acknowledged there had been behavioural difficulties with their son.
The young people inside the car that was struck by the blast had filed victim impact statements. They had spoken reasonably about how they felt and the impact of what had occurred, Judge Callaghan said.
"For one of them, it was not until sometime later that the shock set in, obviously when they realised how close to their maker they had come," he said.
