"....a "wonderful father"..."

...according to his wife.

Really?

He failed to check it was loaded before asking Lewis Bailey to put the weapon against his head for the pictures.

*sigh*

Still, anyone can have a moment of utter, near-lethal stupidity, no matter how otherwise responsible. It's what you do afterwards that counts.

So what did this 'wonderful father' do?

Hole, a father-of-four, saw his stepson having a fit on the bedroom floor and dialled an ambulance.

The court heard he told the operator: "A little boy has shot himself in the head. Hurry up - he's dying."

He then fled the family home before paramedics arrived...

Hmmm....

Hole visited family to change his clothes before putting the gun in a drain and destroying his phone.

The court heard that he was found nine hours later by police when he was arrested for attempted murder.

Luckily for him, he's married to a woman with either an extraordinarily forgiving nature, or a room-temperature IQ:

Lewis's mother Edwina, who married Hole four years ago, was in court to support her husband.

In a letter to the judge, she appealed for leniency and described Hole as a "wonderful father."

She said: "We've been through difficult times and sometimes it has been almost impossible to cope. But Michael had been the glue that holds this family together.

"Michael has an excellent relationship with Lewis and he misses Michael and does not wish him to go to prison."

Now I might just, just, bring myself to forgive a man who makes a single, utterly stupid error. But I don't think I could bring myself to forgive a man who fails to deal with the consequences of that mistake as a man should.

Which either makes her a better woman than me, or a liability.

And note, for this offence, he got five years. That sentence ring a bell?