A Queenstown man has avoided a conviction for accidentally shooting his wife.
He was charged with careless use of a firearm causing bodily injury after inadvertently pulling the trigger of his shotgun at the precise moment she walked past him in the garage of their Shotover Country home on April 10.
She suffered gunshot wounds to her abdomen and arm, and required surgery at Dunedin Hospital.
The man, who was granted permanent name suppression by Judge Bernadette Farnan in the Queenstown District Court today, had finished cleaning the gun in preparation for the duck hunting season.
But he then decided to load and unload the weapon to familiarise himself with it, as he had handled it only once before.
But he miscounted the number of shells he had loaded it with, and a round remaining in the chamber was discharged as went to dismantle the gun.
His wife was struck by multiple pellets at a range of about two metres as she suddenly entered the garage through an internal access door.
Prosecuting Sergeant Grant Gerken said the defendant had breached three of the seven golden rules of firearms safety: to treat every firearm as loaded, to always point firearms in a safe direction, and to only load a firearm when ready to fire it.
Judge Farnan said the defendant felt ``profound remorse and guilt'' over the incident, suffered post-traumatic stress and had been diagnosed with depression.
She accepted a conviction would affect the couple's ability to travel overseas together, something they did often.
