[oxfordgamers] Um, can you DUMB?

If I were to actually consider accepting someone's offer to kill someone
for, I would have asked for all cash or a better car.

-w

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's High Court on Thursday jailed a bungling
hitman who agreed to kill a businessman in return for $160 and an old car
-- but confused the address and shot the wrong man.

Paul Jones, 41, ended up shooting and severely wounding his intended
victim's next-door neighbor Ernest Broom.

Sentencing Jones to 17 years in prison, Judge Brian Barker said: "You shot
him at point-blank range and it is a miracle he survived. You have ruined
his life."

Jones had committed a "terrible and arrogant" crime in shooting Broom, who
needed emergency surgery following the attack, the judge added.

The court heard earlier in the trial how businessman Tony Bristow had hired
Jones, promising him $160 and a second-hand Ford Granada to shoot a
business rival and former employee in November last year.

But Jones muddled the address and lay in wait outside Broom's house, next
door to his target Douglas Burns.

When Broom was alerted by his wife to Jones lurking outside and gave chase,
the hitman fired with a shotgun, peppering his stomach with 250
perforations.

"He just shot me and left me there. He didn't give me a chance and never
said a word," Broom told the court.

When Burns heard about the attack and realized he had been the intended
target he rang Bristow to brag: "You shot the wrong man."

Bristow, convicted at an earlier trial of conspiracy to murder, had
promised Jones the equivalent of around $5,000 for the contract killing --
$160 in cash and the $4,800-valued car.

"You would think that life had a higher price. Sadly it does not,"
prosecutor Anthony Munday said.

A jury found Jones, from West Sussex in southern England, guilty of
conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and possessing a firearm with intent
to endanger life.

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