A British graduate with a strong stance against firearms met a tragic end when her father accidentally shot her during a visit to his home in Texas. A coroner determined that while trying to ‘tease’ her, he inadvertently aimed a pistol at her chest.

Kris Harrison, described as a ‘functioning alcoholic,’ claimed that his daughter Lucy, who worked in fashion buying, had requested to see his Glock 9mm pistol. Despite having no formal training with the firearm, he alleged it accidentally discharged as he removed it from its case.

The coroner, however, ruled Lucy’s death at the age of 23 as unlawful, pointing out that Mr. Harrison, who had consumed at least 500ml of wine, recklessly pointed the gun at her chest, not realizing it was loaded.

In response to the coroner’s findings, Lucy’s heartbroken mother expressed her sorrow, stating, “I never imagined she would be shot and killed in the US, a place where she should have been safe.”

Lucy Harrison, from Warrington, Cheshire, was preparing to return home on January 10 last year after spending time in Texas with her boyfriend when the incident occurred.

During an inquest held in Warrington on Tuesday, it was revealed that Mr. Harrison, an executive at a fiber optics firm, had been drinking on the morning of the incident. It was also noted that the father and daughter had engaged in a heated discussion about Donald Trump prior to the shooting.

Emergency services rushed to the house in Prosper, near Dallas, after her boyfriend Sam Littler dialled 911.

But she had been shot through the heart and died at the scene.

Last June police in the US state deemed that her death was accidental – a decision her mother Jane Coates described at the time as ‘baffling’ and ‘beyond comprehension’.

Giving her findings today, senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish said Mr Harrison’s actions had been ‘reprehensible’.

Rejecting his explanation that his semi-automatic handgun ‘just went off’ when he was showing it to her, she said the fact his daughter was shot in the chest from across the bedroom showed his account to be false.

The coroner said that to ‘shoot her through the chest whilst she was standing’ would have required him to have been ‘pointing the gun at his daughter’ without checking it was not loaded and ‘pulling the trigger’.

‘I accept he was a teaser, and on the balance of probabilities this was what he was doing,’ she said.

‘I accept he did not realise the gun was loaded.’

Saying he was ‘reckless’ to have bought a pistol without undergoing training on the safe use of firearms, she expressed hopes that ‘in the cold light of day’ Mr Harrison ‘now recognises the risk he caused to her life’.

Relatives of Ms Harrison wept as the coroner recorded her conclusion.

Ms Devonish said his actions amounted to gross negligence manslaughter under English law and were ‘aggravated’ by his alcohol intake that day.

Speaking afterwards, flanked by Lucy’s ‘soulmate’ Mr Littler, her mother thanked the coroner for giving her daughter’s ‘voice back, after what has been an unrelenting year of deep shock, grief and fight’. 

Thanking the coroner for ‘exploring all of the evidence fairly, as fully as she could, and fearlessly for Lucy’, Ms Coates, a deputy manager at a primary school told of how for 23 years she had dedicated herself to the safety of her only child.

‘I brought Lucy up in a single parent family and along each step of the way, I did what parents do to keep their children safe: watching her play with friends when she was little, staying awake until she came home from a night out, and feeling grateful every time her return flight landed safely after visiting her Dad and family. 

‘I never imagined she would be shot and killed in the US, in a place where she should have been safe. 

‘We respectfully accept that our two cultures are different in regards to firearms, yet we feel Texas gun laws did not keep Lucy safe from harm.’

Describing Texas gun laws were ‘so different to England’, Ms Harrison said firearms caused ‘too many deaths in the USA’.

‘Furthermore, it is mine and Sam’s strongly-held view that the US investigation led by the Prosper Police Department lacked the rigour and scrutiny you’d expect if this had happened in the UK.’ 

Saying ‘Lucy deserved better’, she nevertheless thanked first responders for their efforts to save her daughter’s life.

‘Finally, I want to thank Sam, for loving Lucy unconditionally – I take great comfort in knowing that in her short adult life, she experienced the richness of true love with her soul mate.’

Adding that there was ‘much to be learnt from Lucy’s needless and entirely avoidable death’, her mother said she would not let ‘bitterness and hatred’ consume her.

‘Lucy had so much more of life to live, to love, to give. 

‘She had a huge sense of right and wrong, and was not afraid to speak out if she saw any type of injustice. 

‘Those who really know Lucy’s heart can hear her, loud and clear, and know exactly what she would want us to do moving forward. 

‘Make change. Do better. Be better.’

Mr Harrison had hired lawyers who on Tuesday made an unsuccessful attempt to have senior coroner removed from the case on the grounds she was ‘biased’ against him.

But the coroner rejected the application and the inquest at Cheshire Coroner’s Court went ahead.

After Tuesday’s hearing his lawyers released a statement from Mr Harrison, who split from Ms Coates when Lucy was young and later settled in the US, where he married and started a new family.

In his first public comments since the tragedy, Mr Harrison paid tribute to Lucy as ‘the light of my life’ and said he was ‘deeply sorry’ for the pain he had caused her grieving family.

‘From the moment she was born, to watching her grow into the remarkable young woman she became — from her first steps to her graduation, where I cried with pride — was the greatest privilege of my life,’ he said.

‘Lucy adored her younger sisters, and our home was never truly complete unless she was in it — laughing, cuddling, and filling every room with joy.

‘During her last visit, she wrote a letter saying that Texas was her home and that she felt lucky to be part of “the best family in the whole wide world”.

‘That letter is now one of our most treasured possessions.

‘Losing Lucy has shattered all of us. I lost my best friend.

‘My girls lost their big sister and hero, and her stepmum lost her bonus daughter who taught her how to be a mum.

He said: ‘I fully accept the consequences of my actions, and there isn’t a day I don’t feel the weight of that loss — a weight I will carry for the rest of my life, and I know that nothing I say can ease the heartbreak this tragedy has caused.

‘I cannot undo what happened, but I can honour Lucy by being the best father I can be to her sisters and by carrying her memory forward in everything we do.

‘I am deeply sorry for the pain others feel from this tragedy.

‘Lucy’s spirit — her warmth, her humour, her kindness — will live on in all of us who loved her.’

In a separate witness statement read to the court, Mr Harrison said his daughter agreed to let him show her the weapon after they had watched a television news report about gun crime.

He said he bought the handgun as a ‘home defence’ weapon, meaning he did not need a licence as long as he did not take it out in public.

He had ‘no prior experience and no formal training’ around firearms, he said.

Mr Harrison suffered an ‘alcoholic seizure’ in 2023 which left him in an induced coma, the inquest was told.

He had drunk a 500ml carton of white wine that morning, but did not believe he was impaired by alcohol when his daughter was shot shortly before 3pm.

‘As I lifted the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang,’ he said in his statement.

‘Lucy immediately fell to the ground.’

Police bodycam footage showed Mr Harrison saying the gun ‘just went off’. ‘We were getting ready to go to the airport and we were talking about guns,’ he tells the officer as a shocked-looking Mr Littler stands with his hands behind the back of his neck.

‘It was in the bedside cabinet in a locked box. I took it out to look and it just went off.’

In a statement read to the hearing, Officer Luciano Escalera said he smelt ‘metabolised alcohol’ on Mr Harrison’s breath at which he initially lied, saying he hadn’t drunk alcohol since the day before.

But he then said confessed to having drunk a ‘small’ carton of wine earlier in the day. In their evidence, Ms Harrison’s boyfriend and mother insisted she would not have been interested in seeing her father’s gun.

She had previously expressed concerns that it was unsafe for her father to have a firearm in the house with his young daughters around, they said.

Ms Harrison had expressed concern about ‘volatility’ in the house, a friend said, adding that presence of a gun created an ‘unpredictable environment’.

Giving evidence, her boyfriend said she had argued with her father about Donald Trump on the morning of her death.

He ‘always felt on edge’ at the house, he added, saying: ‘There was a lot of very opinionated people in the house.’

As they prepared to set off, he said Mr Harrison took his daughter by the hand in a ‘mysterious’ manner without saying anything.

He then guided her into the downstairs bedroom where the gun was kept in a locked case.

Within 15 seconds, Mr Littler heard a ‘loud bang’ from the bedroom and found his girlfriend collapsed on the floor.

Paying tribute to her daughter, Ms Coates, a deputy manager at a primary school, described her as ‘a real force of life’.

‘She was sensitive, energetic, intelligent, funny and a really great human being,’ she added.

She was ‘passionate about things’ and ‘loved to have debates’, she added.