GANG WAR FEAR AS QUANGO FUNDS HATE FILM

AN ASTONISHING £380,000 of public money has been used to bankroll a violent new film that threatens to start a fresh gang war.

Bev Thomas, whose daughter Charlene Ellis, 17, and friend Letisha Shakespeare, 18, were murdered at a Birmingham hair salon six years ago, said she was “horrified” at the November release of 1 Day, a hip hop gangster movie filmed in the city that claimed their lives.

The film, bankrolled by Channel 4 and quango cash, is based on the notorious Johnson Crew and Burger Bar Boys, the gangs responsible for the 2003 New Year’s shootings.

To the outrage of victims’ families, former gang members helped with the storyline—and then paid to star in the movie.

Ms Thomas said: “If the film people talked to these gangs to get their advice, why didn’t they come and talk to the loved ones of victims? Families have been ignored.”

She and fellow anti-gun campaigners fear the hip hop film could act as a gang-recruiting tool and unleash renewed bloodshed.

They are afraid thugs could even battle it out at cinemas in a sick show of bravado.

It would undermine all progress made calming tensions since 2003, they warn.

The £380,000 investment was made by Screen West Midlands, a Birmingham-based quango which doles out Lottery money.

Tory MP David Davies, a member of the Home Affairs select committee, said: “People who buy Lottery tickets will be sickened to learn that their money has been handed against the wishes of grieving families to gun-toting gangsters rather than to worthy causes.”

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne said: “The use of public lottery funds to pay gang members to appear in a film is a terrible mistake, and I sympathise with the victims who will be sickened by this whole episode.”

Shot on the streets of Birmingham’s inner city Handsworth, a district dominated by the Burger Bar Boys, filmmakers insist 1 Day is a realistic portrayal of the dangers of gang membership.

Internet trailers show armed mobsters and children marching to deafening gangster music launching into beatings and drive-by shootings.

Director Penny Woolcock spent months talking to former gang members to understand their mindsets.
She then rewarded them with parts in the film.

Screen West Midlands said the project had “local support” and offered “an insight into the challenges faced by young people growing up in tough conditions”.

However, anti-gang campaigners last night expressed disgust.

Ms Thomas, who with Letisha’s mother Marcia set up the New Year Shooting Memorial Trust to ward teenagers away from gang life, said the film had re-opened old wounds.

Her daughter Charlene and Letisha were the innocent victims of the January 2003 drive-by when the Burger Bar Boys opened fire at a late night party at the Uniseven hair salon.

Their target was a Johnson Crew member, but they killed the two young girls instead.

Four men, including Charlene’s half-brother Marcus Ellis, were convicted of their murder in 2005.

Last night, Ms Thomas said: “All that happened in 2003 has been brought back. I find the thought of this film horrifying and I’m disgusted by it.

“We’re trying to get young people off the streets, not glorify what these gangs do by making them into a film.

“Paying people who were in the gangs that killed my daughter is horrific. That money should have gone to community centres here, on after-school clubs and on educating children about gangs.”

The film’s plot centres on Flash, a gangster given 24 hours to find all the £500,000 he had been entrusted with by Angel, a mob boss about to be released from prison.

The film has been backed by some community leaders, but Cllr Keith Barton, who chairs Birmingham City Council’s gang reduction taskforce, said: “The idea that a gangster would leave £500,000 stuffed under some mattress is just not credible. continues here

Wannabe gangster who shot teenage girl in the head while dancing with a gun in his hand is jailed for eight years

A wannabe gangster who shot a teenage girl in the head while dancing around with a gun was jailed for eight years today.

Wayne Bryan, 20, said by police to be fascinated by guns and gangs, had been drinking and smoking cannabis but thought it was 'cool' to dance with the weapon which accidentally went off in his hand.

Sophie Finucane, 16, who was enjoying a sleepover party with girlfriends at her house, was shot at close range in the head.

Bryan had been invited as they were friends, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Sophie, who had been 'excited' after buying a new dress to attend a school prom, was given just 40 minutes to live after bullet fragments lodged in her brain.

Miraculously Sophie, living with her mother in Manchester at the time, regained consciousness after 10 days in intensive care.

Her father, John, kept a bedside vigil, and is now looking after Sophie at his home in County Cork, Ireland.

Sophie is still unable to walk, has lost use in her right arm, her vision is damaged and she suffers seizures. She will never make a full recovery.

Just three days before the shooting police raided the Gorton home of Bryan, who had a long criminal record, and found a magazine with seven bullets. He was bailed by police.

Today officers denied this was a mistake and branded Bryan a 'coward' for getting rid of the gun before handing himself in an hour after the shooting, around 5.30am on June 14.

The weapon has never been found and police warned someone will die because it is still on the streets.

Unemployed Bryan admitted reckless wounding, possession of a firearm, possession of an imitation firearm and two counts of possession of ammunition at an earlier hearing at Manchester Crown Court.





Jailing him for eight years, Judge Andrew Gilbart QC said: 'This is a sad, tragic, terrible case.

'Guns are a scourge in parts of Manchester. Their possession is seen as something to be expected or proud of. They are neither.'

He quoted from a statement given to police by Sophie's father.

It said: 'I feel sad my only child will miss out on the three fundamental things in life; work, marriage and children.

'But that said, thank the Lord she is with us today.'

The prosecution accepted Bryan did not intend to shoot Sophie and had found the gun in the house.

But the court heard Bryan had been in and out of the courts for violent assaults and burglary, but had repeatedly been given non-custodial sentences.

A picture found by police on his mobile phone shows him posing with a revolver, and another with the words West Gorton Crew - a Manchester street-gang Bryan associated with.

He had also repeatedly been picked up by police and found to be wearing body armour - which he had tested by firing at with a Webley handgun.

On the night Sophie was shot, Bryan told police he found the gun in a bag at her house during the sleepover party.

'He took it out and began to dance around with it,' Adrian Farrow, prosecuting, told the court.

'He was drunk... and also smoking cannabis all day. He was waving his arms around.

'He described the feeling of holding the gun as being, "good" because it was a gun.'

Sophie was blasted in the left side of the head. Fragments of bullets are still in her brain and cannot be removed.

Bryan fled with the gun and bullets before going back to the scene with his mother to hand himself in.

Outside court Andy Tattersall, senior investigating officer for Greater Manchester Police branded Bryan a 'coward' for getting rid of the gun before helping his stricken friend.

'I personally think he should have got a longer sentence, but the courts are restricted by rules that govern sentencing.

'Wayne Bryan is a young man fascinated with gun and gang culture.

'What was his first reaction when he shot Sophie? His first reaction was not to help Sophie, it was to gather the gun and gather the bullets and run. continues here

Gun crime: playboy gun-runner jailed for selling ‘ballistic bling’ to gangs

A wealthy playboy drawn into Britain’s biggest gun-running network by the glamour and notoriety of being a gangster was jailed for 20 years yesterday. 

Kaleem Akhtar, 29, whose family run a clothing empire, was one of seven men sentenced to jail for arming the country’s most violent gangs with Russian-made Baikal IZH-79 self-loading pistols. The gang set up a sophisticated chain to distribute the weapons, converted by a Lithuanian gunsmith to fire 9mm bullets, primarily from the south to the north of England. 

By the time they reached criminals, the weapons came with their own “ballistic bling” of silencer and South African PMP bullets, ready for use in gangland hits and armed robberies. The black market cost was £2,500. 

The guns have been blamed for the spate of shootings in recent years from Liverpool to Scotland.

Judge Clement Goldstone, sitting at Manchester Crown Court, told the gang: “The pursuit of profit or glory from a business in which it was an inevitable consequence — and intended — that lives would at least be put in danger whilst its customers sold drugs, ran protection rackets, committed robberies and sought to put themselves above and beyond the law mark the offences among the most serious.” 

Akhtar, 29, of Chorlton, Greater Manchester, was convicted of conspiracy to possess firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life. 

Madasser Ali, 30, of Bradford, Asaid Salim, 27, of Manchester, Agnius Malcevas, 26, a Lithuanian living in Essex, and Paul Wilson, 37, of Southport, Merseyside, had earlier pleaded guilty to the same charge and were jailed for 18 years, ten years and eight months, 12 years, and 11 years and six months. 

Edgaras Malcevas, 34, also of Essex, and Michael Peake, 44, of Liverpool, pleaded guilty to other firearm charges including possessing ammunition and a prohibited weapon and were jailed for five years and nine years. 

Akhtar worked at Storm, a fashion outlet in St Johns Shopping Centre, Liverpool, where he liked to be known as “the Big K”. He kept two mistresses and swaggered around like a mobster. One associate said that he was simply a “thrill-seeking rich kid”. Judge Goldstone told him: “You were drawn to this conspiracy out of greed and a desire for street cred and glory. You have instead brought shame and disgrace.” 

The Greater Manchester Police seized 29 weapons during the investigation. Another 27 have been recovered from Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Scotland. The number seized is said to reflect only a proportion of those distributed. Continues here