A neighbourhood row over gulls ended with a woman being shot in the head with an air rifle.
Samantha Brown was standing just 11ft from Mary Johnson when she pulled the trigger – and a court heard yesterday her victim could have been killed.
The pellet fired from the weapon lodged in Ms Johnson’s skull and doctors fear it could be too dangerous to try to remove it.
Had it gone through her eye, she could have suffered fatal injuries.
The 47-year-old was left with hearing difficulties, loss of sensation on the right side of her head and sinus problems after the attack outside her Easter Ross home.
At Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday, 25-year-old Brown admitted discharging the .22 calibre weapon at Ms Johnson, to her permanent impairment, permanent disfigurement and danger of life.
Sentence was deferred for reports until September 1 and Brown, of 122 Mansefield Estate, Tain, was remanded in custody.
She was originally also accused of killing gulls – a protected species – but this charge was dropped by the Crown.
The two women were neighbours at Balintore when a row broke out about gulls.
Ms Johnson believed Brown was shooting the birds
She called her a “cruel cow”, asked if she was “having fun”‘ and said she was going to call the police.
Fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart said there was an angry and foul-mouthed between the two women, during which Ms Johnson made comments about Brown’s size and sexuality.
He told the court: “Brown replied something like ‘You want me to shoot you?’ or ‘You better get back in your house or I’ll shoot you’.”
Mr Urquhart said Ms Johnson, of Parkland Place, Balintore, insulted Brown again.
Brown then reloaded the air weapon, pointed it at Ms Johnson and said: “If you say that again I will shoot you.”
Mr Urquhart said: “Brown’s friends heard Mary Johnson reply ‘Shoot me then’.
“Brown then pulled the trigger on the weapon and said repeatedly ‘I’ve just shot Mary’.
“She also said to one of the others present, ‘I didn’t even aim. I just held it up like this and shot her’.”
The fiscal depute told Sheriff David Sutherland: “Although the rifle was damaged when recovered, a ballistics expert who had a similar air rifle said it was potentially lethal, especially from close range.”
Mr Urquhart read a report from consultant pathologist Dr Mark Ashton who said that there could have been fatal consequences at such close range.
The fiscal depute said Brown had been living next door to Ms Johnson at the time of the incident on July 5 last year.
Brown’s agent, solicitor Alison Foggo, said: “She has been under considerable stress as a result of this case and it has had an adverse effect on her mental health.”
Ms Johnson was not in court yesterday.