A Selby man shot dead by police while carrying an air rifle had been exposed to the military and weaponry from an early age, an inquest heard today.

Kirk Davies, 30, of Burn, used to fire air rifles at targets in his garden with his father as a teenager, the coroner's court sitting in Leeds Crown Court was told.

His mother, Brenda Tait, said Mr Davies' father fired the air rifles with him in response to Kirk being bullied at school.

Mrs Tait also spoke of the devastating effect it had on her son when she told him his father had only served in the army as a driver, and not in an elite unit as his father had said.

Mrs Tait told the inquest, being held before a jury, that her son's army career had started well, serving with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, in Strensall, York. She said her son had only ever wanted to be a soldier.

But after two tours of Northern Ireland he started to suffer "brainstorms", she added.

He became involved with a local woman, who then rejected him and terminated their baby.

"He went ballistic after that, and went AWOL from the army," Mrs Tait said in her witness statement.

From there, the jury heard Kirk Davies went to Croatia to serve as a mercenary.

West Yorkshire coroner David Hinchliff told the jury that Mr Davies was shot dead by armed police near to Pinderfields Hospital at Wakefield on September 24, 2000.

The cause of death was given as a single gunshot wound to the abdomen.

He had earlier entered Selby police station carrying an air rifle wrapped in camouflage webbing. Police believed it to have been a high velocity rifle.

Before the inquest began, Mr Hinchliff told the jury of five men and five women they were not in court to find anyone guilty.

He said the jury's role was about deciding on the circumstances and particulars surrounding Kirk Davies death. "I prefer to use the term conclusion rather than verdict for the final decision you will make."

Updated: 16:19 Monday, April 22, 2002