'Our Neighbour Killed My Boyfriend With A Crossbow & Shot Me At 20 Weeks Pregnant' | This Morning

[Music] when laura sugden and shane gilmer moved to a quaint hamlet in east yorkshire they anticipated a quiet life but things took a harrowing turn when a year-long feud with their next-door neighbor anthony lawrence ended in tragedy well laura sugden is joining us now to tell us um this extraordinary story which we're reading this morning and listening to um what you were going to say yesterday how the hell does it seem real so here we go so you met shane when you were working for the council and you say that the honeymoon period between the two of you never really ended it's always great fun you've got your daughter isabel who thankfully at the moment we're talking about was away you're in this sleepy village uh next door uh lives anthony lawrence and when when did the debate and disagreement uh start with him um well it kind of it kind of started over there was never really a point where i think something started but the main part was on the 13th of january the year before in 2017 and he was playing loud music until about half 11 4 to 12. and shane decided to go around and just ask him to turn it down um and you know at that point shane just went around the back i stayed in the property because i'd never had any any problems with him before and then i had a lot of commercial outside so i went outside and he basically had an axe um and said that he was going to kill us and i just told shane to come back inside and you know just like leave it obviously i was concerned but just thought it was a bit out of the blue that just to ask somebody to turn their music down it was a bit extreme reaction um so we kind of talked about it that night when we got into bed and shane was you know not massively concerned not as concerned as what i what i was um and i think the next day i managed to persuade him after talking to colleagues at work that we should really fund the police um which which we did and so the reaction from the police what happened next um they more or less said that the um that it was hit our word against his um so they weren't prepared to really do anything at that time you've got it there's got to be more has that yeah there has to be more and then which there eventually was so he was um he had you had an issue with his cannabis use a lot of cannabis and smoke coming into your house and that sort of yeah it was the uh just you could just smell cannabis in my daughter in my daughter's bedroom and she was suffered really badly at the time with her asthma yeah that much so that i ended up moving into another bedroom and it stopped well he was eventually serving the eviction notice which which was probably in his head was that the triggering of this yeah and so the this particular night you're out to a local restaurant and you come home you walk upstairs and there's a mark on the bedroom carpet which you know wasn't there before and you knew he was in the house yeah i just had a feeling that the week prior to him you know the week prior to that um it was he never stayed he never stayed away from her um and that week he was aware then he was back and you know i i expressed my concerns to shane at the time and said um it's really strange behavior and shame is like oh maybe he's you know is moving somewhere but i just felt really unsettled uh that week and when we went out on the friday i didn't really want to go um but we did but when i came back obviously i noticed the mark on my carpet when i opened the door i had a feeling that somebody was in my house but it wasn't a feeling that somebody was in my house it was a thing that he was in my house and i'm not really sure why i felt like that but it ever since the accident the exactly a year to this happening i just felt on edge i'm not surprised and so are you okay to talk about what happened in those moments yeah yeah um so he obviously i opened my push my daughter's bedroom door open which thankfully she wasn't there yeah she was staying with her father um and he was stood there with um what what i now know as a crossbow um and a head torch on i basically just asked him you know what what are you doing in my house and he didn't actually say anything at that point but um i heard shane heard because i called him by his name i said tony what are you doing in my house so shane head and started to move you could tell that he was i could hear him moving to come upstairs and he pushed me back into my bedroom and pushed me onto my bed and then he had obviously she only got to the top of the stairs by this point so he got went onto the landing um to shane um and i've managed to get my telephone out of pocket and call 999 and put my telephone back in my pocket before he came in back into the room um shane came in and he'd it shot him but i wasn't i wasn't aware of that until like until i came back into the bedroom um there was a lot of i was trying to reason with him asking him you know why he was doing this you told him you were you were pregnant at the time you were saying to him i'm pregnant yeah he he already knew because he had been listening he told us that he'd been listening to us for a year through the wall yes with a listening device so that make you feel uh sick yeah um yeah to think that you know there'll be a lot a lot of conversations that me and shane had which you know you're having the privacy of your own home that you know we were completely unaware you know but obviously the reporting of the cannabis to the police and the latin agent he would have heard all that we should um we should also say at this point and this is the horrifying terrifying part of the story is you're in a semi-detached house he's joined to your house and the reason the way he got into your house was taking the bricks out in his attic the adjoining attic between the two houses and uh and he'd come in that way so he was in your loft and that's how yeah he got in so you're pleading with him you know you're 20 weeks pregnant you've got your your partner who it turns out is critically injured on on the floor and then he shoots you uh yeah he then shot me in the head um i then got out of got out of my side of the bed and i pulled the ball out of my head um why did you pull it out i don't know it was just an instinct um yeah i just pulled it out and threw it to the floor then he then he grabbed it and and and stuck it in his throat he came in with a with a second bolt uh once he heard that i was moving in the bedroom um and we had a bit of a scuffle on the floor um and yeah he pushed the ball into into my neck how did you get away um i actually managed to get over him at one point i overpowered him um and i asked i had the ball in my hand um but unfortunately shane i would have been able to but she wasn't able to to move so i couldn't have done it on my own you had to uh you had to run um you had to get out shane couldn't move it transpires that the the bolt had gone through his arm through his liver into his kidney but also into his spine as well and these were critical injuries he died when of a cardiac arrest when he got him to hospital which was so sorry how about but you had to get out of there what were the last words that he said to you uh be strong i love you and get out to save the baby yeah yeah so you run down the road he passes you lawrence passes you on the road in his car um thankfully you seek the safety of your neighbours yeah and the police and the medical services arrived um and shane is rushed to hospital where he sadly passes away um and then there's a man hunt yeah uh and you you two two days later he's found he's taken an overdose in a caravan in yorkshire and he's dead yeah um you say you wish you'd killed him yourself yeah absolutely yeah there's no justice there wouldn't have been any justice if you decive if it had been here i don't think prison would have been enough and it certainly would have left me unsettled forever absolutely um but yeah i just think it just i think i would have i would have felt something more you know if i'd have been able to put that bullet in him at that time you said that the only thing that's helped you cope is the birth of your daughter yeah and having her oh absolutely yeah she's she's incredible you're um your strength for just sitting here and being able to tell this story i can't imagine how difficult this is for you um but also there isn't a really important reason that you're here today and that is to talk about crossbows and how easily and readily they are available for people to be able to buy these lethal weapons that destroyed your family yeah they uh there's no regulations to have a crossbow um none whatsoever um and that's what that's what my campaign is for um to get it to parliament to basically to ensure that they they have the same regulations as what it is to have have a shotgun yeah um they're just as fatal um you know they've caused a number of deaths and serious injuries and you know ruined families and you know i'm not going to ever stop anybody be murdered ever again that's not what i'm trying to do but there's not really a purpose for a crossbow to be had and if there is then what i'm trying to achieve is not going to prevent that from you know if somebody's got one for good reason then i'm not that's not going to it's not going to prevent them from having it they just have to obtain a license to get one it seems a very very reasonable request for something that has utterly destroyed your your family yeah thank you for coming here today thank you thank you um and and how can you be supportive where do people find uh find your campaign yeah just as many people just please please everybody just just sign my campaign which is where i need a hundred thousand signatures it's um on the parliament uk parliament website and i've shared the link everywhere you know everywhere and all my family and friends are sharing it so okay it's called hashtag shane's law so if anybody just looks for that on social media i'm sorry you're here under these seminars and we're deeply deeply sorry thank you but um but thank you for well done thank you

Channel: This Morning

Views: 1,051,230

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Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021