AYRSHIRE smallholder Frank Gillingham was jailed for seven years at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday after setting up a booby trap with a shotgun that nearly killed a young man.

His daughter said afterwards that her father's life had been made a ''living hell'' by vandalism and livestock attacks on the land near Hurlford on the outskirts of Kilmarnock.

Trial judge Lord McCluskey said it was ''tragic'' that first-offender Gillingham, 56, should find himself in court, but stressed: ''The court must not risk sending out a message that people can set up traps with immunity. Breaches of the Firearms Act will be viewed with the utmost seriousness.''

Although the sentence was severe, there was little immediate sympathy for Gillingham.

Mr David McLetchie, a spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said: ''Although Mr Gillingham appears to have been provoked over the years, his vigilante attacks and use of a firearm were callous and quite frankly stupid. His actions could easily have cost the life of an innocent young person.''

Gillingham's MP, Des Browne, declined to comment as he has had extensive meetings with Gillingham at local constituency surgeries and felt their discussions should remain in confidence.

The jury at the High Court took only an hour to find Gillingham guilty of attempted murder. Derek McCulloch, 23, almost lost his left hand when he tripped the booby trap at a shed and was blasted at near range. Had he used his right hand, he believes he would have been shot through the heart. A second trap failed to go off.

Mr McCulloch and friend Brian Lucas, 21, claimed in court they ''stumbled'' on the smallholding by accident and believed it to be derelict. Mr McCulloch told how he pushed a piece of plywood next to a steel door on the shed and found himself shot in the hand. ''I ran the mile home frightened that I would bleed to death,'' he said.

Army bomb disposal experts were called in and found two shotgun barrels, shortened to five inches, bolted to the floor with string from their triggers to the plywood and inside the door.

Gillingham, of Cessnock Place, Kilmarnock, admitted in evidence he set up the traps, intending to wound any would-be intruders. He said: ''I had been persecuted for years. Everything I tried to build up was torn down behind me.''

He added that he complained to police, but the culprits - who had wrung the necks of his geese and assaulted and wounded his life-stock - were never caught.

After being found guilty yesterday, he issued a statement, which said: ''The Crown and police have been unable to protect me and I have effectively and unlawfully been driven off my property.''

Mr McCulloch, who has had four operations on his hand and has more to undergo, said yesterday: ''What Gillingham did was unforgivable. If I had been right handed I would have been standing slightly over to the right and would have been shot through the heart.''

However Gillingham's daughter Christine said after the case: ''I don't believe the jury or the judge were made aware of just how bad my father's mental state of depression was at the time because of these thugs who made his life a misery. These thugs drove him into a state of clinical depression.''

Comment

qFrank Gillingham has paid a heavy price for taking the law into his own hands. His defence was that he was driven to violent means to protect his property from terrible and relentless hounding by tormentors from a nearby housing estate. There can be no doubt that the sentence, seven years, was consistent with the charge, attempted murder. But was the charge the proper one? We ask not out of any sense of condoning what he did. He should never have set up such a dangerous booby-trap. The court heard, however, that his life had been made a living hell by his harassers.

There were clearly extenuating circumstances which prompt us to ask if a different charge which allowed more flexibility in the sentencing would have been more appropriate. It is a very difficult area to get right, and each case must be judged on its merits. But this does seem to be another example of imperfection in the law, coming as it does so soon after the four-year sentences handed down to three youths found guilty of culpable homicide for repeatedly kicking and stamping another youth to death. The Crown is appealing against the sentences on grounds of undue lenience.