A Muswell Hill man who accidentally shot his friend dead while playing cowboys and indians was jailed for three years on Friday.

Thirty-year-old Manjit Sangha, of Colney Hatch Lane, pointed the Brocock gun at the head of Sukhbir Pattowala, 25, at a 21st birthday party thinking it was empty.

But as the gun exploded, Mr Pattowala fell to the ground with a bullet lodged in his brain and despite the efforts of hospital staff, he died the next day.

The court heard how Sangha had been mimicking gangster rap videos prior to the death of Mr Pattowala at a party in Hounslow on October 19 last year and how Sangha told police: "I was just playing around with the gun. I didn't know it was loaded."

Prosecutor Mr Richard Whittam told the court that Sangha, who was very drunk, had waved the gun around and pointed it at two wedding guests and pulled the trigger at one on an empty chamber.

Sangha gave the gun back to his friend Rajinder Bassi, who had been carrying the weapon. Bassi loaded the pistol and passed it back to Sangha who singled out Pattowala for another joke. But the joke went tragically wrong as the gun went off.

Mr Michael Austin-Smith, defending, said: "He had the gun, he was playing cowboys and indians with it. He pulled the trigger. To his horror there was the recoil, the orange flash and his friend went down."

Sangha admitted manslaughter and two charges of affray on the grounds he did not know the weapon was loaded.

Sentencing, Judge Gerald Gordon said: "No sentence I can pass can bring him back or bring recompense to his family, and that is not the purpose of a sentence now."

July 10, 2002 11:30