The devastated parents of a six-year-old boy shot dead by his great-grandfather said they relive the final moments of the six-year-old's life "over and over" in their heads.
Jenny Dees and Andy Metcalf today told how they first thought little Stanley was joking when he said he had been gunned.
Speaking to Hull Live , Jenny said: "I lifted his top up but I couldn’t see anything. I thought he was play-acting and said: 'Don’t be silly, Stanley, he wouldn’t shoot you'."
But Albert Grannon, 78, had unintentionally fired an air rifle at the youngster , making a hole the size of a 5p piece in his stomach.
Stanley died of his injuries on July 26, 2018, and Grannon was last week jailed for three years for his manslaughter.
Now grief-stricken Jenny, of Sproatley, East Yorkshire, and other relatives told of the moments after the shooting.
"My mum took him off me and he was looking over her shoulder and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Then his head went back and I shouted: 'Put him down. Something’s not right.'
"My mum lifted his top right up and saw a hole in his side. I said to my grandad: 'You’ve shot him' and he just kept saying: 'I don’t know. I don’t know'."
Sheffield Crown Court heard Grannon kept his loaded .22-calibre gun at his home and unintentionally squeezed the trigger.
Stanley then shouted "You shot me grandad" and tragically died after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Grannon has never apologised to Stanley's parents for what happened.
Stanley’s distraught dad Andy Metcalf said: "The more we heard about what happened from the police, the worse it got.
"This wasn’t a simple accident. We’ve gone over and over it in our heads. He kept a loaded gun lying around — and not just any gun, an illegally modified one.
"We cannot understand how Sam (Grannon) could have been so reckless with our boy and why he has never offered us an explanation or an apology."
Andy, who runs his own tyre business, broke down when he recalled having to tell Stanley’s twin sister Elsie that he wasn’t coming home.
"She had a little smile on her face when she saw us," the former taxi driver said.
"And then I had to tell her: 'I’m so sorry, but Stanley’s died'.
A post-mortem examination found Stanley died as a result of a "single penetrating injury to his abdomen, which damaged his bowel and a major artery in his pelvis, causing massive blood loss."
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