Barras was hit in the back and both sustained gunshot injuries to their legs. Shooting downwards in the dark with his shotgun loaded with birdshot, Martin shot three times towards the intruders (once when they were in the stairwell and twice more when they were trying to flee through the window of an adjacent ground floor room). On the evening of 20 August 1999, two burglars – 29-year-old Brendon Fearon and 16-year-old Fred Barras, both from Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire – broke into Martin's house. Martin had his shotgun certificate revoked in 1994 after he found a man stealing apples in his orchard and shot a hole in the back of his vehicle. Changes in legislation in 1988, resulting from the Hungerford massacre, had changed the licensing treatment of semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than two to equate to that of a firearm, requiring a valid firearms certificate. Martin had equipped himself with an illegally held pump-action Winchester Model 1300 12-gauge shotgun which he claimed to have found. Martin also complained about police inaction over the burglaries and claimed that multiple items and furniture were stolen, including dinnerware and a grandfather clock. He claimed that he had been burgled a total of ten times, losing £6,000 worth of furniture, though police stated they were unsure if all of the incidents occurred. On 20 August 1999, Tony Martin, a 54-year-old bachelor, was living alone at his farmhouse, Bleak House, in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk. Martin was convicted of murder, later reduced to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility and served three years in prison, having been denied parole. However, prosecutors cast doubt on his evidence and pointed out that he did not have a valid firearms certificate. There was much sympathy for Martin and enthusiastic support for the right to defend one's own home.
Anthony Edward Martin (born 16 December 1944) is a farmer from Norfolk, England, who shot a burglar dead in his home in August 1999.
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