THE parents of a man fatally shot by a hunting rifle have broke down in tears as the closing addresses in the Supreme Court trial over his death were made.
Bradley Thomas Daniel Auckram, 52, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his stepson Jason Burton, 41, in the family's Clarkson home on June 8 last year.
Mr Auckram has admitted to shooting Mr Burton in self defence after a talk about living arrangements that sent Mr Burton into a rage.
Mr Burton was shot four times with a 33 calibre rifle in a matter of seconds - once to his arm, knocking him to the floor, then twice in the back, and once in the head.
The wounds to his body were so bad, forensic police could not determine how far away the gun was when it was fired.
Today, as Mr Auckram's defence counsel, Linda Black, made her closing address to the jury, he and his wife Jacqueline wiped away tears.
During her address, Ms Black pointed to the evidence showing Mr Auckram as someone who did not act out in anger and felt the lives of his family and himself were in danger from a man who was becoming increasingly unstable.
She pointed to Mr Auckram's calm behaviour in the emergency phone call on the day of the shooting, his video interview with police and cross examination during the trial as a man who controlled his temper.
"He was almost unnaturally quiet and calm," Ms Black said.
"That morning, Brad Auckram was not angry."
Ms Black said the Auckrams had found it progressively harder to deal with Mr Burton, who had long battled with drugs and alcohol, was mentally ill and self medicating.
Ms Black said in the months leading up to the bloody Friday, Mr Auckram genuinely feared for his family's safety because of verbal threats made by Mr Burton and he thought his stepson had a gun.
"He knew Jason was mentally ill and getting worse," Ms Black said. "Getting more and more aggressive."
She made the case for self-defence by pointing to the number of opportunities her client had to lie and fabricate evidence that were never taken.
"If he was going to lie, he did a seriously bad job of it," she said.
However, this morning, prosecutor Dave Dempster described Mr Auckram as a "timid" man who had difficulty asserting himself and was "jumping at shadows."
"He's got it completely wrong about Jason having a gun," Mr Dempster said.
"It's just a shame he didn't stop to find out."
Mr Dempster said Mr Auckram deliberately got the gun to kill Mr Burton.
"There's no mistaking what his intention was in the way that he shot him," he said.
"Jason was on his hands and knees, he's defenceless, was it necessary for the accused to reload the gun and fire it into his back?"
The prosecutor put it down to Mr Auckram bottling his emotions over Mr Burton's behaviour for decades.
"Of course he was angry, but he never expressed it," he said.
"When it happened, the accused acted out in anger."
The jury will be asked to determine if Mr Auckram is guilty of manslaughter if they find him not guilty of murder.
Justice Eric Heenan will finish giving jurors directions tomorrow morning before they retire to make their decision.
