Italian tourist who shot his lifelong friend dead in horrific pigeon-hunting trip accident is cleared of culpable homicide after just 30 minutes of jury deliberation
- Franco Moroni bowed to the jury and said ‘grazie’ after they found him not guilty
- He described how he was filled with shame after shooting Marco Cavola dead
An Italian tourist who shot and killed his lifelong friend during a pigeon-hunting trip to Scotland has been cleared of culpable homicide.
Franco Moroni bowed to the jury and said ‘grazie’ after they took just 30 minutes to find him unanimously not guilty at the end of a week-long trial.
Moroni – who admitted killing Marco Cavola by blasting a shotgun at his head at point-blank range – wept and embraced a supporter after the jury ruled it was a catastrophic accident.
It can now be reported that the shooting agent who organised the trip had already been fined nearly £5,000 for health and safety breaches and for supplying the fatal weapon to an unlicensed shooter.
Members of Mr Cavola’s family had been in court to hear the evidence but had flown home to Italy prior to the final day of the trial and the verdict.
Moroni, whose family run a paint shop in Loriano, near Rome, told the trial the incident had completely changed his life and had turned him into a virtual recluse.
He described how he was filled with shame after shooting his friend dead on the Rossie Estate in Inchture, near Dundee, on March 25, 2019.
Franco Moroni bowed to the jury and said ‘grazie’ after they took just 30 minutes to find him unanimously not guilty at the end of a week-long trial
Marco Cavola sustained severe head injuries and died in March 2019
Moroni, sporting long white hair and a beard, told the High Court in Dundee that he had not had a haircut since the incident almost four years ago.
Asked if he had cut his hair since the shooting, he said: ‘No, I’m ashamed to go out and about in Loriano. From this incident, yes.’ He added that his marriage of more than 30 years had also ended.
He told the trial that he and his victim – who had been a childhood friend – were keen porcini mushroom collectors in the woods near their home in the Rome region.
He said Mr Cavola and fellow holidaymaker Onorio Galoni were keen hunters and had persuaded him to join their pigeon shooting trip to Scotland in March 2019.
Moroni said: ‘Marco was passionate about hunting and mushrooms. Marco convinced me to go with him for four or five days.
‘I didn’t want to go very much, because I’m not very passionate about hunting. Marco was very good at involving and persuading people, so I agreed to go along with him.
‘I decided about 15 days prior to going. Marco and Onorio organised the trip. I had shot two or three times, but it was not like I’m a hunting expert.’
He said the trio were met by local sporting agent Peter Bruce and had a brief shooting outing on the day they arrived. The tragedy occurred the following day.
Moroni said the group were taken to Rossie Estate at Inchture and were each given a shotgun and a warning not to aim towards the road when firing the weapons. He said no further instruction was given.
Mr Galoni was put in one hide, while Moroni and Mr Cavola were placed together in a second hide. The jury had already heard how having two shooters together in the same hide could be ‘extremely dangerous.’
‘I don’t think I had more than five shots. He shot more than me but I don’t know how many. There were many birds. We were in the hide and I was sitting down because I didn’t feel comfortable with the situation.
‘At a certain point, a bird came across. Marco shot three times. He then told me ‘shoot, shoot, shoot’ and then he got down,’ Moroni said.
‘At that point I rose to my feet and shot and then he also got up at that point. He did the movement so quickly – lowering himself and getting up again.
‘As I was turning I shot him. It was a complete tragedy. Everything was happening. I was screaming for Onorio.’
The court was told Moroni did not have a valid visitor’s gun license as Mr Bruce – whose license provided temporary cover – had driven from the scene to buy petrol.
Moroni told the court that Mr Bruce told him to tell the police he and Mr Cavola had been sharing a shotgun, which is what he initially did. However, when he was interviewed the following day he admitted they both had shotguns.
He told the jury he had lied because he was in a panic and did not know what to do. He said he had subsequently told Police Scotland the complete truth.
Moroni said his friend had been around a metre away when he had shot him in the back of the head and it was immediately apparent that he had been killed instantly.
Sergeant Ian Borthwick, 39, told the court Moroni was ‘extremely distraught, distressed, in a state, shouting and wailing’ as he was being interviewed.
Det Con Andrew Howe, 44, took a further statement the following day and said Moroni was ‘very upset, crying, shouting out in pain, repeatedly the name Marco.’
Wildlife and shooting expert witness Stewart Scull told the jury that having two guns shooting from the same hide could be ‘extremely dangerous.’
Mr Scull said it was clearly recommended in the Wood Pigeon Shooting Code of Practice that the safest way to conduct pigeon shooting was by limiting guns to one per hide.
He added that it was not an unknown practice to have two shooters in the same hide, but told the jury that it could be ‘extremely’ dangerous.
Colin Shedden, 65, Scottish Director of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, agreed it was a risk for two people to share a hide.
Mr Shedden said: Our code of practice clearly states it can be dangerous for two people to be shooting from a hide at the same time.’
The court has already heard how Mr Cavola was fatally wounded by a shotgun blast minutes after the party were left unsupervised in the field.
Shooting agent Peter Bruce, 56, told the court he had slipped away briefly to buy diesel and returned to discover Mr Cavola had been shot dead.
Mr Bruce, from Meigle, said he had known the victim for a decade and had organised a number of shooting trips for him and his friends.
Moroni, 62, was found not guilty of culpably and recklessly discharging a loaded shotgun in the direction of Mr Cavola, whereby he was struck on the head by shot and gases from the shotgun, sustaining severe head injuries and dying as a consequence of his injuries.
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