THE man at the centre of last week’s armed siege in Sutton St James has been accused of chasing someone down the street with a gun.
A Spalding Guardian reader claims he came face-to-face with an armed Barry Horspool while he was in a relationship involving his then teenage daughter.
The reader, who has asked not to be named, described Horspool as a “very angry man” after meeting him in the late 1990s.
He said: “I had been seeing Barry’s daughter Amanda for a number of weeks and her dad was not happy, mainly because she was 18 at the time and I was about ten years older.
“At the time I sped off in my car thinking that he wouldn’t use the gun, even though he pointed the firearm towards me but after what happened last week it made me realise how lucky I probably was.
“All I can remember about Barry is that he was a very angry man. He wasn’t the type of guy you could sit and have a conversation with.”
However, members of the Sutton St James community have painted a different picture of Horspool, describing him as a “gentleman who would talk about his family”.
They said he was a “rum” person who had lived in Sutton St James his entire life.
Horspool is understood to have taken his own life after an 11-hour stand-off with armed police at his home in Chapelgate last Tuesday.
During the incident, an officer was shot in the face when a bullet was fired at a marked patrol car.
We put a number of questions to Lincolnshire Police this week, which included whether there had been any previous incidents involving Horspool and firearms.
However, spokesman James Newall said the force was unable to provide further details due to ongoing investigations.
He said: “These are all valid questions and we understand the public’s desire to know the answers but the proper forum for this is the inquest.”