Jail for Bicester trampoline park gunman who pistol whipped 'love rival'

Sending him down for more than three years, Judge Maria Lamb told Rihards Mezinieks: “You were clearly motived by revenge.”

Mezinieks, 37, denied making plans to lure the man, who he thought had struck up a relationship with his estranged wife, to the Bicester trampoline park where he’d bought tickets for his wife and sons.

But those denials were rejected by Judge Lamb at a hearing at Oxford Crown Court this week, when she ruled that he’d put significant planning into his revenge attempt.

Rihards Mezinieks' pistol found in his BMW Picture: CPS

“This, in effect, was a case of encouraging [your estranged partner] to go there in confident expectation that the man whom you believed to be engaged in an affair with her was going to accompany her,” she blasted.

“In my view it is no coincidence you arrived two minutes before the start of the children’s session at the centre and you sat in that vehicle accompanied by two other men.

“I have little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that this was no spontaneous encounter. It was pre-planned and significantly pre-planned.

“And when [the victim] came upon the scene, as you were confident he would do, you got out of that car to terrorise then assault him.”

The court previously heard that Mezinieks booked his children a session at Bounce trampoline park in October last year. He called his wife telling her of the session, despite police bail conditions relating to an earlier incident that prevented him from having any contact with her.

When the man he believed to be the rival for his wife’s affections turned up, Mezinieks lost his temper.

CCTV showed Mezinieks marching up to the victim, who felt a gun press into his stomach. He was struck across the temple with the weapon, leaving the impression of a pistol butt on the right side of his face.

Rihards Mezinieks in Bounce trampoline park's car park Picture: CPS

He was said to have threatened: “I told you not to come near my wife. I will kill you.”

Within days he sent a series of sinister messages apparently threatening his wife and his supposed love rival. He threatened to ‘break his life in some way as he did to mine’ and ‘destroy all of his life’.

Mezinieks said in a chilling postscript: “If they continue to lie they will continue living in fear. Even if I will go to prison he will pay for it. They will live in fear/agony, I will swear.”

On November 11, Warwickshire Police spotted Mezinieks’ BMW on the M40 and arrested him in the car park of the Banbury Gateway shopping centre.

The defendant was recorded saying ‘I smashed him’ as he was cuffed by the officers.

They found a Glock-style BB gun in glove box and another realistic imitation pistol in the front passenger’s side door pocket. The weapons were so powerful that, although BB guns, they were classified as firearms by law. Ammunition was found in the car.

Rihards Mezinieks in Bounce trampoline park's car park Picture: CPS

Rihards Mezinieks' pistol found in his BMW Picture: CPS

Mitigating, Ailsa McKeon said her client was ‘not a bad man’ but one who ‘felt pushed to the edge in challenging person circumstances’. His parents suffered poor health and he himself had experienced deterioration in his mental health.

Mezinieks, of Witnell Road, Coventry, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and possession of a firearm and ammunition in a public place.

He was jailed for three years and seven days. A restraining order prevents him from contacting his wife or his victim for seven years.

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