THE shooting of a Selby man by a police marksman was self-defence, an inquest has heard.

Kirk Davies, 30, of Burn, near Selby, was killed by a single bullet to the abdomen. He was carrying an air rifle, which police believed to be a high-powered rifle, in the grounds of a Wakefield psychiatric hospital.

Detective Superintendent Anthony Simister, of Greater Manchester Police, who headed the police investigation into the incident, yesterday read from an interview he held with the officer who shot Davies.

The officer has been granted total anonymity during the inquest on Davies, and is being referred to as PC X. PC X told Det Supt Simister: "It was pure and simple self-defence. It was purely instinctive. I believed he was going to shoot me. I still thought he was going to shoot me even when I was shooting him.

"It was the most frightening experience that I have ever had to deal with. All I see is that gun pointing at me."

Earlier, the inquest jury at Leeds Crown Court heard that Davies wanted to die so his son would not grow up to be ashamed of him.

Firearms officer PC Andrew Bruce said: "He talked as if his son would be ashamed of him if he wasn't shot."

PC Elaine Entwhistle, the only female member of the firearms team which attended Newton Lodge Hospital, Wakefield, where Davies was armed with an air rifle, added: "He was asking officers to shoot him to save his son."

Davies had also talked to PC Bruce about problems he had had with his own father.

PC Bruce said: "He was upset about his father being a driver in the army. He had pretended he was in the SAS. He was getting quite emotional and upset. He was asking us continuously to shoot him."

PC Entwhistle, who had only became a firearms officer three months before the shooting, said that Davies was acting as if he was in a war film.

She said: "He told me if I was going to shoot him not to look into his eyes. I have heard that line said in a war film. I think that night anyone could have been PC X. We were all in danger from the minute we arrived. Anyone could have shot the fateful shot."

The hearing continues.

Updated: 11:37 Tuesday, April 30, 2002