FOUR men are standing trial this week after a teenager was shot dead in a pub car park on the Ll?n Peninsula last year.

Peter Colwell was out with friends on the evening of Saturday, 4 February 2017, when he was shot at point-blank range whilst sitting in the back seat of a Land Rover Discovery in the car park of the Ship Inn in Llanbedrog.

He died when a semi-automatic shotgun was fired. Two of the men he was with that night, Ben Andrew Wilson and Benjamin George Fitzsimons, are charged with gross negligence manslaughter and are standing trial at Caernarfon Crown Court.

Wilson, 28, now of Ely, Cambridgeshire admitted having a loaded shotgun in a public place.

Benjamin Fitzsimons, 22, and his brother Michael, 25, both of Nanhoron, Pwllheli and Harry Robert Butler, 23, of Llaniestyn, Pwllheli, deny possessing a loaded shotgun in public places.

In opening statements to the jury, prosecuting counsel Patrick Harrington QC said 18-year-old gamekeeper Mr Colwell, from Capel Uchaf, near Clynnog Fawr, was in the vehicle with the other men waiting for Wilson, the vehicle owner.

As they waited, the shotgun, owned by Wilson, was pointed into the rear of the vehicle by the front seat passenger, Benjamin Fitzsimmons, the court was told.

Mr Harrington said the killing was neither deliberate nor malicious.

But a young man died as the result of the “cavalier disregard of the fundamental rules of gun safety by Ben Wilson and Ben Fitzsimons”.

The muzzle shouldn’t have been pointing at the teenager, he added.

Mr Harrington told the jury Ben Fitzsimons, Wilson, Butler and Peter Colwell were all gamekeepers on the large Boduan Estate, near Pwllheli.

Wilson lived at the time close to his employer who had a state-of-the-art gun store.

The jury also heard how CCTV footage from the Ship Inn showed the men returning to the car and, after a short while, a flash could be seen as the gun went off.

Mr Harrington said the weapon had a safety catch which, when operational, stopped it being fired.

The trial is expected to last for two to three weeks.