A retired farmer in Co Wexford who told gardaí he shot an intruder on his property at the weekend has vowed he would do the same again.
John Lancaster said that he fired at the man with his legally held rifle after discovering a break-in at his home six miles from Bunclody. He said the man "made a small leap and a bit of a yelp like a dog" when the shot was fired. The intruder was helped away from the scene by a man who got out of a car.
Mr Lancaster said it was the fourth time he had been robbed in the last two years. His house had been burgled twice before, and 12 months ago he had 52 sheep, valued at around €4,000, stolen from a field on his farm one night.
"I don't really know what happened next. I couldn't get the empty shell out of the rifle to shoot again," said Mr Lancaster.
Mr Lancaster lives along with his wife Celia and son Paul (21) in an isolated bungalow in the countryside at Ballyboy, Ballycarney, on the Bunclody to Ferns road. He currently leases out his farmland. He was alone in the house when the incident happened last Saturday.
Mr Lancaster said he had been working in his shed 500 metres from his home at the time.
"About 5 o'clock or whenever it was getting dark I decided to go in for a cup of tea. I got to the back door and found it open. The latch was on a bit of wood in the middle of the floor. The first room I went into would have been the dining room and the settee was upside down with cushions on the floor.
"I went on down to the bedrooms and they were all upside down.
"I got the rifle from the press in the hall and then I heard a noise from another bedroom at the front of the house. Then I heard a thump telling me the rogue had jumped out the window.
"By the time I came out he had jumped the railings and was running down the road. I had to shoot across the corner of the field. That's not easy. It is much easier to shoot in a straight line."
As he pointed out his position when he took the shot, he indicated the spot where he said the intruder had been hit. "The guards said it was 60 yards or metres as it is now. If it was a straight line I would have got him," he said.
He said he reported the matter to gardaí and had made two statements on the shooting at Garda stations in Enniscorthy and Gorey.
Mr Lancaster has a grown-up family of three, including a daughter studying law.
He said the experience had changed his opinion on the use of firearms.
"I would have had two opinions about the Nally case in the west. Now I have no doubt, I would do the same."
Mr Lancaster said he did not regard himself as a hero. Nor did he want other people to regard him as such.
"I never used the gun in that way before and hopefully I will never need to again. But if someone breaks into the house again and they get away without an injury, that will be their good luck. If they get an injury that's their bad luck. But they shouldn't come crying to me afterwards."