Blackburn trio jailed for 31 years after gang feud

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/headlines/display.var.2282098.0.blackburn_trio_jailed_for_31_years_after_gang_feud.php
By Tom Moseley

THREE men have been jailed for a total of 31 years after an innocent teenager was caught up in a violent feud between rival gangs.

Shots were fired at a terraced house in Whalley New Road, Bastwell, Blackburn as the terrified 13-year-old and his 20-year-old brother cowered inside.

But the revenge attack should have been aimed at the house next door.

At Manchester Crown Court today Amjad Niwaz, Anjum Nawaz and Mohammed Imfiaz Malik were jailed having admitted possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.

Niwaz was jailed for 13 years, Nawaz for 10, and Malik eight.

The trio had plotted the attack after two rival groups of Asian men clashed on June 17 last year outside a house in Wensley Road, Blackburn, the court was told.

Philip Curran, prosecuting, said the shooting the following day had been "the final act in a carefully-prepared plot" after days of tension and fighting.

The court heard that following the fight in Wensley Road, Nawaz, 24, drove to Sheffield, where he had been living.

Mr Curran said he had gone to fetch the antiquated double-guage shotgun that would be used in the shooting - although this was denied by Nawaz.

Meanwhile, Niwaz, 25, of Grindleton Road in Blackburn, and Malik, 26, from Montague Street, drove to Darwen to buy a £450 Jeep Cherokee that would be later used as a getaway vehicle.

The court heard Niwaz paid the private seller in cash and left without picking up the vehicle's documentation.

The three men then returned to Blackburn and convened a "friendly taxi driver" to take Niwaz, who was carrying a balaclava and the shotgun, to Whalley New Road while the other two followed in the Jeep, the court heard.

The taxi driver later said he was "terrified" when Niwaz told him "nobody is taking over my patch" as they made their way to the house.

When they arrived, Nivaz pulled on the balaclava and threw a stone at the window of one of the houses, the court heard, before firing at a downstairs window.

But he had got the wrong address and when the innocent 20-year-old student peered out of an upstairs window Nivaz mistook him for the man he was after and fired upstairs, covering the brothers in shattered glass.

In a statement read to the court, the 20-year-old said he had dived onto his brother to protect him and had feared for their lives.

The taxi driver fled the scene and the men sped off in the Jeep. Police later recovered the shotgun at a house in Greater Manchester where Malik was living.

Jeffrey Samuels, representing Niwaz, said he had been suffering from mental health problems, and Guy Kearl QC, for Malik, said he had not been in the Jeep when the attack was carried out.

Speaking after the case, Detective Inspector Andy Hulme, who led the investigation, said: "This has been a long and complex inquiry and I hope the sentence acts as a deterrent to criminals and underlines the seriousness of the offence."

The family targeted in error no longer live at the address, as they had been in the process of buying a new home when the attack happened.

DI Hulme said: "It has been horrendous for them, particularly the two brothers.

"You do not expect to be shot at in your own home when you have no axe to grind with anybody.

"Their father has been extremely dignified throughout. He feels more embarassed about the whole situation because there has been lots of aspersions cast against his family.

"They are completely untrue but it has been hard to get the rumours to leave the community."

I think I know that Nawaz, nutter from Sheffield used to hang about around Nether edge. I picked him up once and he told me that he'd been kicked out by his family for using drugs. Glad he got his just deserts.