A MAN who held a sawn-off shotgun to the head of his ex-partner and threatened to shoot her dead was found to have an arsenal of weaponry when arrested including fragmentation bombs designed to maim and kill.

Truro Crown Court heard that it was totally against the character of 30-year Samuel Rhodes who had gone off the rails after an assault three years earlier which left him dependent on alcohol and cocaine completely changing his personality.

Rhodes from Foxhole near St Austell pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing an imitation firearm at the time of arrest, assault by beating, damaging property, possessing another prohibited firearm, possessing a firearm without a firearm certificate and four charges having an explosive substance with intent.

He was sentenced to 13 years in prison extended by four years to 17 by His Honour Judge Simon Carr because of the seriousness of the offences following the incident which took place on December 14 last year. An indefinite restraining order against Rhodes was also made.

Prosecutor Mike Brown told the court the couple had first met in 2016 and in 2019 had moved in together and at first the relationship was good but things deteriorated with the defendant's consumption of alcohol and cocaine. He became verbally abusive towards her and would instigate arguments for no reason and had a short temper.

He said Rhodes had never previously been violent towards her and wasn't until December 14, 2021.

He said on that date the victim was at home at 10.30 in the morning when she heard the defendant banging on her back door. She asked him what he wanted and he forced his way into the property, grabbed her by the neck and forced her up against a wall. He then produced a sawn off shotgun from his waistband and held it to her head. Mr Brown said at the time the shotgun was both loaded and fully operational.

"He [Rhodes] stated: 'This is what you've pushed me to, I should kill you right now'," said Mr Brown. "Her initial perception of this was it was all some kind of joke. At that point the defendant grabbed her phone off the coffee table and smashed it with the butt of the weapon, he then went on to smash the house phone using the butt of the weapon."

He said the woman soon realised he wasn't joking and tried to leave the property but he stopped her, pushing her back by her neck.

"He began brandishing the weapon around saying such remarks as 'I should do it'," said Mr Brown.

She pleaded with him to stop but the words fell on deaf ears and he continued to threaten her saying: "Fine, go upstairs and I will shoot you up there," said Mr Brown.

When Rhodes started to fiddle with the shotgun, the woman took the opportunity to run out the back door to her neighbour and the police were called.

They arrested Rhodes at the Penwyn Garage and when they opened his van found a veritable arsenal of weapons and a vast quantity of ammunition including a reactivated Glock style 9mm blank firing starting pistol, a maritime flare gun and three tobacco tins containing viable fragmentation bombs packed with shrapnel. There was also bomb making equipment. The guns were also able to be used.

In a victim impact statement read out in court the woman said she still felt petrified with fear remembering what happened. "I felt sick with fear and in the moment have never felt so terrified in my whole life," she said. "Looking back I play those moments over and over."

She said the stress she suffered now was immeasurable and difficult to cope with and she struggled mentally and financially had cut herself off from family and friends.

In his defence Rhodes' barrister said he accepted across the board that he was responsible for what happened and offered an abject apology for what had happened but did not offer an explanation as to why he'd done it.

He said it was unimaginable why a man of such previous good character should do this and he had received glowing character references in prison for his work with other inmates."Following a very odd and worrying assault he had started taking class A drugs on an "industrial scale" and it had led to him effectively losing his mind," he said.

Sentencing Rhodes, Judge Carr said fragmentation bombs have only one purpose, to kill and maim as many people as possible. "They were loaded with ball bearings, shrapnel and metal fragments, precisely for that purpose," he said. He said the effect on the victim had been "catastrophic".

He said his sentence would be of one length for the possession of the explosives, while the sentences for the other offences would run concurrently meaning they were absorbed by the lengthier sentence. Rhodes would not be eligible for parole until he had served 13 years.