Paddock Wood, Kent. Midnight
To the casual observer, it looked as if the man in the muddy Land Rover Freelander was waiting for something. The driver wore a flat cap, a heavy navy Barbour Morris utility jacket and a dark Sullen Burnt flannel shirt. They would have seen the figure sit immobile and in silence for the best part of hour, they would not have seen that the driver was cradling a Browning Maxus. It was quite a gun. Its Power Drive Gas System was designed to perform under harsh hunting conditions; the Maxus delivered 18 per cent less felt recoil than its predecessor, and 44 per cent less muzzle jump for more accurate follow-up shots which instantly translated into more birds in your bag, if birds were your prey. Tonight, though, pheasants were off the menu. Instead it was peasants for starters. The driver’s intention was to put the wind-up the inhabitants of an illegal traveller camp which Tunbridge Wells Borough Council seemed powerless to deal with.
It was one of the largest unauthorised sites in Europe. Stinking rubbish was strewn in splitting bags around the gate leading to the neighbouring site that they had been evicted from, where the council had bulldozed the old plots exposing former landfill that had been capped in the 1990s. It had cost £8.5million to clear the lot of them 100 yards down the road and make the situation worse. Rats abounded, as did stomach complaints and impetigo. Something had to be done.
At 12.30am, when the last caravan light had finally gone out, the driver went into action and was pleased to find that the manufacturer’s claims about the Maxus were correct. The Lightning Trigger probably was the finest fire control system most shooters would ever encounter in an auto-loading shotgun. With lock-times averaging .0052 seconds, it was around 25 per cent faster than the nearest competing autoloader, making every pull perfect.
No fortune teller had seen this coming. The three and a half minute rampage burst every tyre and shattered every caravan window in range – so much for lucky heather. There were no serious casualties.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing just what the driver had wanted them to see: a burly head-case in a flat cap and Barbour wax jacket wearing olive green army surplus trousers and Doctor Marten boots going to town with a shotgun. Job done. Within minutes of the assault ending, the Press Association received a phone call from someone using a voice distorter, calling themselves “Cam O’Dolland of the English Liberation Front.” The caller claimed responsibility and demanded that the Coalition Government take “immediate” action against “the lawless gypsy plague.”