ARMED with a loaded handgun, distraught Shane Stevens took a pot shot at his ex-partner s home and smashed a kitchen window as their five-year-old daughter slept upstairs. Stevens had been crying his eyes out before he grabbed the gun from the back of h

ARMED with a loaded handgun, distraught Shane Stevens took a pot shot at his ex-partner's home and smashed a kitchen window as their five-year-old daughter slept upstairs.

Stevens had been "crying his eyes out" before he grabbed the gun from the back of his car and fired the weapon.

The 38-year-old toured Haddenham until he tracked down Stephanie Stevens' home, and then used the gun.

"I really wanted to hurt her, not physically but mentally," Stevens explained to police.

Stevens and his former partner separated five years ago, following an 11 year relationship, prosecutor Laura Mardell told Ely magistrates.

On June 17 Ms Stevens heard a loud bang that sounded like a brick coming through the window.

"Her 18-year-old son was in the kitchen at the front of the house, and told her the kitchen window was broken," added Miss Mardell.

"Stevens had driven round the village with a loaded shotgun in the car and then discharged the weapon."

Thirty-eight-year-old Stevens, of Orchard Estate, Little Downham, admitted possessing a loaded shotgun and ammunition in Hop Row, Haddenham, and causing criminal damage.

Mitigating, Guy Holland said the pistol was legitimately held, and did not require a firearms certificate.

"It is a leisure use pistol, the sort that can be bought legitimately from sports stores," he added.

"My client bought the gun two or three days before the incident for �70, the gas and ball bearings were supplied with it."

Sending Stevens to Cambridge Crown Court for sentencing, presiding magistrate Sue Griffin said: "You fired in a reckless way at the house, with your ex-partner and child inside, they must have been in great fear, and must still be in great fear of you.

"In our view you should serve a prison sentence of more than six months.