NEIGHBOURS were left paralysed with fear after a violent shooting on Flame Street at Gateshead left a 41-year-old man hospitalised with a gunshot wound to his leg in May last year.
On Wednesday, a woman who police allege tried to destroy a black puffer jacket linked to the shooting, was committed for trial in Newcastle District Court.
Sarah Winwood was once charged with discharging the firearm alongside 40-year-old James David Earle and 24-year-old Lincoln Adams. Those charges have since been dismissed.
It was about 4am on May 26 when two masked men banged on the door of the Gateshead home.
Three young children who were asleep inside were terrified, screaming and huddling together in the corner of the lounge room.
A 42-year-old man who was also in the home rushed to the front window, where he saw Adams, a masked man armed with a sawn-off single barrel shotgun.
Adams pulled the trigger, the bullet went through the window and struck the man in the upper right thigh.
Adams and Earle had spent days planning the attempted home invasion, targeting a safe inside the home that supposedly contained cash.
Both have pleaded guilty to their roles in the shooting.
A third person, 25-year-old Hope Lesley Louise Dawson-Green, has pleaded guilty to hindering the discovery of evidence.
Winwood has pleaded not guilty to hindering the discovery of evidence after she allegedly destroyed a black puffer jacket with the intent to stop police finding evidence related to the firearm being shot at the home.
Winwood will be arraigned in Newcastle District Court on August 29.
The victim was taken to John Hunter Hospital and underwent four surgeries to remove shotgun pellets from his thigh. He also had to undergo skin grafts and was readmitted to hospital twice due to complications from his injuries.
A police investigation connected Adams to the shooting that morning when he was seen near the getaway car.
Adams was arrested and later made admissions, saying he had consumed four grams of cocaine before the shooting.
They also found DNA and fingerprints that linked Adams and Earle to the getaway car.
