Baby left 'fighting for life' after being shot with air gun 'to shut him up'

Jordan Walters, 24, plead guilty last year to firing a loaded air rifle into a then-18-month old boy's head in Bristol, England.

The child was visiting couple Walters and Emma Horseman, 24, with his mother Amy Allen and his brother Riley, a two-year-old.

According to reports, Horseman asked Allen while Harry was crying, "How do you cope with them crying all the time?"

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Horseman then told Walters -- while he was cleaning what was allegedly thought to be an unloaded rifle -- to "shoot Harry, just to frighten him, to shut him up, shoot it at Harry."

Only, the rifle was loaded and Harry was shot in the head.

"The bullet penetrated Harry's skull. He was operated on as a matter of extreme urgency and fortunately his life was saved," said Andrew Macfarlane, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court.

Macfarlane described the incident as "simple and horrifying."

"Parents in a block of flats in Bristol meet up on one Friday afternoon with their children and, within an hour, a baby is fighting for his life on his way to hospital," Macfarlane told jurors.

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Walters pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm in July, but Horseman, whose trial began Monday, denied the same charge by aiding and abetting him.

The case, which is expected to last for two days, continues.