Mum who begged for her granddad to be jailed for shooting son, 6, dead reveals family members now won’t talk to her
THE heartbroken mum of a six-year-old boy shot dead by her grandad with an air rifle has revealed how some family members won’t even talk to her now.
Jenny Dees said her once-close family had been “torn apart” after little Stanley’s great-grandad Albert Grannon fired the weapon by mistake and fatally wounded him.
The retired ship worker, from Sproatley, near Hull, East Yorks, was jailed last Tuesday for three years after admitting manslaughter after Jenny begged a judge to cage him.
She revealed on ITV’s This Morning how the family has been “ripped in two” – with some relatives shunning her for turning her back on Grannon.
Clutching a teddy containing her son’s ashes, Jenny said: “There’s a few people who now don’t speak, which is another thing that’s hard to deal with because we were just so close.
“I feel like you’re blaming me for something and I’ve done nothing wrong.
“I’ve just lost my son but I feel like they’re blaming me.”
‘WHY HAVE YOU SHOT ME GRANDAD?’
On July 26 last year, the family had gathered at Grannon’s home for a get-together when Jenny heard a “loud bang” coming from the room where her grandad was showing Stanley the gun.
Stanley’s final words were “why have you shot me, grandad” before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he went “floppy”.
As there was no sign of blood, Jenny initially missed the hole in his stomach but later noticed the 5p-sized wound.
She said: “We tried to keep him calm but inside you are panicking because you know this is your child, you want to protect your child.”
Tragically. the pellet had ripped through the football-mad youngster’s stomach and severed an artery – causing him to go into cardiac arrest.
NO REMORSE
Jenny says she still hasn’t received an apology from her grandfather, who shamelessly posted a picture of him smiling on a cruise the day after Stanley’s birthday.
She said: “When it happened, I actually put my hand on my grandad’s knee and told him ‘everything’s going to be OK, don’t worry’.
“When he found out Stanley had passed away, he was nowhere to be seen – he’d been taken away ill. I thought to myself, ‘well he’ll come and see me because he knows he’s done a terrible thing and he will be sorry’.”
Grannon did not apply for a firearms certificate, as he believed he would be refused one because he had lost a “significant” part of his right hand while working as a shipbuilder.
‘IT’S BAD, ISN’T IT?’
He used the gun with his left – but the safety catch was altered because Grannon found it awkward to operate with his left hand.
Grannon, who went with the stricken lad in the ambulance, asked a paramedic: “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
He then concocted a story that the gun had gone off while he was checking it was loaded and the pellet had “ricocheted” off the floor into Stanley’s stomach.
But ballistic tests later proved the pellet had in fact been a direct hit.
Humberside Police previously said Grannon had shown no remorse until he pleaded guilty last month.
– causing Grannon to finally plead guilty to manslaughter last month.
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Jenny and husband Andrew are now trying to move on with their lives for their daughter Elsie, who was heartbroken after the death of her twin brother.
As the mum said: “We didn’t just lose Stanley that day, we lost Elsie too because she couldn’t deal with losing her twin brother.”
The parents are campaigning for better education for air rifles after learning their son would have died whether the gun was modified or not.
