Sixpenny Handley Shooting

A wedding, due to take place in Southampton, had to be cancelled because the bridegroom, Uriah Jones (29) was shot when visiting his fiancé in Sixpenny Handley a few days earlier. As he was kissing his intended Beatrice Sheen (23) ‘goodnight’, sixty-eight shotgun pellets crashed through a window into Uriah Jones’s neck killing him. Fortunately, Miss Sheen was only slightly injured.

Suspicion fell on Percy Brownsea, also of Sixpenny Handley, who had enjoyed a previous relationship with Miss Sheen.. He had claimed she had severed this relationship because Uriah Jones, known as Hughie, had money, a house and a lorry. Brownsea had tried his hardest to get her to reconsider her decision. Uriah Jones was a partner with his brother and father in a Southampton sand and gravel business.

Brownsea, a woodman and ex-serviceman, was taken into custody by the Dorset Police. He admitted to firing the gun saying he was drunk at the time and he only meant to frighten them. He remembered that Miss Sheen had once boasted that no-one could frighten her. After he had fired the gun, he realised he had done something foolish and immediately went home.

At his Hampshire Assizes trial in Winchester, Brownsea claimed to have drunk seven pints of beer and some gin before the shooting. The prosecution claimed it was a ‘deliberate murder motivated by jealousy.’ In the witness box, Brownsea said he saw no-one in Miss Sheen’s bungalow when he fired the gun and was aiming at a window the other side of the room.

The Jury of ten men and two women found Percy Brownsea (27) of Sixpenny Handley guilty of manslaughter rather than murder and he was sentenced to seven years penal servitude. The Crown did not proceed on the indictment of the wounding of Miss Sheen in the shooting.

Illustration: Sixpenny Handley.

(Source: Salisbury Times & South Wilts Gazette - 3rd January 1947.)

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