A YORK shooting was so serious it prompted travellers to break their own code and seek justice from the police, a jury has heard.

Making the prosecution closing speech, Sian Morris alleged that traveller Karl Gaskin had gone too far when he shot fellow traveller Robert James at "murderous range" on the James Street Caravan Site on May 10.

Because their relative lay "possibly dying" in hospital, the James family had broken the travellers' code of non co-operation with the law and gone to the police.

Giving the prosecution version on what happened on May 10, Mr Morris alleged that Anthony Gaskin, 30, feeling bitter about being stopped when he was winning a fight against Peter James, got a shotgun and threatened Peter's wife Teresa that he would shoot her husband in an effort to force his opponent to come to the James Street Caravan Site, the "Gaskins' stronghold".

He never intended to use the gun, and when Peter James arrived with others the two set to with fists.

"But it all went horribly wrong," said Mr Morris.

A bigger fight broke out in which John Robert Hooton, 56, saw his screaming son being badly injured by other men. The father called on Karl Gaskin, 29, who had picked up the gun, to "shoot them, shoot them".

"Karl did just that, and at a murderous range, at the man at the front of the crowd," alleged Mr Morris.

John Hooton then took the gun to a horsebox to conceal it.

Karl Gaskin, of James Street Caravan Site, and John Robert Hooton, senior, of Thistle Hill Caravan Park, Knaresborough, deny attempted murder.

Anthony Gaskin, 30, denies possessing a shotgun with intent to make Teresa James and Peter James fear unlawful violence, and Hooton senior denies concealing a gun to impede the arrest of the Gaskins.

Karl Gaskin's barrister Paul Worsley, QC, in his closing speech at York Crown Court, said his client had no motive to shoot Robert James and was acting as a peacemaker between Peter James and Anthony Gaskin.

The barrister asked why the James family had come "tooled up" and "armed to the teeth" to the site which was not a Gaskin stronghold and alleged they had lied in court about arriving unarmed.

There was no scientific or independent evidence to back up the James's claims or link Karl Gaskin to guns found on the site and Robert James' hospital bed description of the gunman did not describe Karl Gaskin, but fitted another man on the site that day.

Malcolm Swift, QC, for John Hooton, senior, alleged the prosecution case against his client had changed and changed during the trial.

The James family had concocted their story together about what had happened but it still had major inconsistencies and he said Teresa James had "lied and lied and lied".

Hooton was trying to prevent violence by hiding the gun, not impede the law.

The trial continues.

Updated: 08:30 Friday, November 16, 2001