Thugs jailed over gun attack on gran's home

THREE career criminals have been jailed for shooting up the home of a grandmother with a sawn-off shotgun after she had returned home from a Mother's Day lunch.

- JOHN SCHEERHOUT

The attack left the entirely innocent gran cowering in shock.

The hooded gunman, Ross Pate, casually blasted a hole through the front door of the flat in Rochdale and then fired a second shot through the window, after the terrified householder had returned home from a Mother's Day lunch with her family.

A court heard the trio wanted 'revenge' in a row with the householder's son. Now Pate, and two accomplices, have been handed lengthy 'for public protection' jail sentences.

The shocking daylight attack happened on the early evening of March 27, in 2022, while the gran was resting in a back bedroom of her flat on Hill Top Drive in Kirkholt, Rochdale.

The victim, who lived alone, told the court in a victim impact statement: "I was, and still am, in complete disbelief that somebody fired a gun into my house... You expect to read these things in the news, you don't expect it to happen to you. As bad as it was, and as much of a nightmare it was, I'm aware of how much worse it could have been. I was left in shock for days and utterly terrified." She added that she 'no longer feels safe' in own home and that it was 'horrible to feel this way every day!