Ref. 28100-04THIS is the man who shot a swan dead at the Lawns lake.

Damien Penrose, 18, was due to be sentenced yesterday for the crime which he admitted last month.

But magistrates adjourned sentencing because he had not turned up to meetings with the probation service to prepare a report on him.

Penrose and a 15-year-old accomplice, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had gone to the lake on the morning of November 5 this year with a loaded air rifle.

As well as killing the male swan the youths also shot its female mate leaving it severely injured and also shot a duck. At an earlier hearing Marion Langford, prosecuting, said early morning dog walkers spotted the two youths with the gun about 8am.

She said they then saw the injured female swan and wondered why the male was not protecting their cygnets.

Another passer-by challenged the teenager asking 'Have you been up there shooting swans?' to which they replied 'Don't be daft', but added they had seen a dead one. After telling the park ranger what had happened, the body of the male swan was found in undergrowth along with a dead duck.

Miss Langford told magistrates "This was a mindless act of wanton vandalism."

Both youths pleaded guilty to killing a wild bird, injuring a wild bird and having a loaded air weapon in a public place.

Penrose, formerly of Worsley Road, Freshbrook, but now living at his mother's home in Torrington Court, also admitted criminal damage to a window.

Hugh Norman, defending Penrose, said his client had no previous convictions and was very sorry for what he had done.

"He had been told, wrongly, that if he shot at a swan with an air rifle it would bounce off the feathers," he said.

Penrose will now be sentenced on January 7 at Swindon Magistrates' Court.

The 15-year-old youth, who was jointly charged with Penrose, was sentenced by the youth court on November 26 to four months detention and training, consisting of two months in secure accommodation and two months' supervision in the community.

He had admitted intentionally killing a wild bird, injuring its mate and having a loaded air rifle in Lawn Woods without lawful authority.

Tom Morton