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Thugs Who Fired at Police Helicopter at Height of Summer Riots are Caged for 124 Years

• Nicholas Francis, 26, described as 'a dangerous man', jailed for 30 years
• Jermaine Lewis, 27, and Tyrone Laidley, 20, both jailed for 23 years
• Renardo Farrell, 20, and Wayne Collins, 25, both jailed for 18 years
• 17-year-old, named as Amirul Rehman after judge lifts order, gets 12 years
• Charges included rioting, reckless arson and firearms possession
• Gang fired at least 12 shots from four guns during riots in Birmingham

Daily Mail UK 7th June 2012

The pose is unmistakable but the target beggars belief.

Arms outstretched, a hooded rioter takes aim and fires at a police helicopter hovering over a scene of carnage in the middle of a city.

Yesterday the gunman and five others convicted over a ‘concerted attack on the police’ were jailed for up to 30 years each after a court heard how they used guns to ambush unarmed officers before turning their fire skywards.




Jailed: Nicholas Francis, 26, left, was jailed for 30 years while co-defendant Tyrone Laidley, 20, right, received 20 years



Guilty: Jermaine Lewis, 27, was jailed for 23 years for shooting at police officers during last summer's riots in Birmingham while Wayne Collins, 20, received an 18 year sentence



Threat: Renardo Farell, 20, was sentenced to 18 years while Amirul Rehman, 17, was given 12 years. The gang lured officers into the area by firebombing a pub and even shot at a police helicopter

The yobs, some said to have links with two notorious local gangs, set a landmark pub on fire as its staff cowered in living quarters upstairs to ‘lure’ riot police to the scene.
Then, from behind barricades, they goaded the officers and attacked them with missiles before opening fire.

CCTV footage released by police shows a large group of men – some armed with baseball bats – gathered outside the pub, smashing windows and throwing objects into the road.

At least four firearms were used in the attacks and 12 shots fired, with officers diving for cover as bullets flew over their heads. At least two shots were aimed at the helicopter, which had been brought in to monitor the disorder in Aston, Birmingham, during rioting last August.

Jailing the gang for a total of 124 years for what he branded a ‘concerted attack on the police’, Judge William Davis QC said the potential consequences of a helicopter being brought down by gunfire were ‘catastrophic’.

Police said the gang were ‘cowards’ who had displayed ‘an extraordinary degree of criminality and malice towards officers’.



The court was shown CCTV of a large group of men fleeing from police, with two men at the rear of appearing to take aim and fire at officers and a police helicopter



Prosecutor Andrew Lockhart QC said that, after getting into formation, officers heard gunshots and were forced to take cover before being given the order to retreat for their own safety


Target: A West Midlands police helicopter circling over Birmingham (file picture)

The man seen in the picture firing at the helicopter was said by police to be Tyrone Laidley, 20.

Following a six-week trial, he was convicted alongside Jermaine Lewis, 27, Nicholas Francis, 26, Wayne Collins, 25, and Renardo Farrell, 20, of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, reckless arson and riot.

Amirul Rehman, 17, was convicted of riot and possession of a firearm.

Police said some of the defendants had ties to the local Johnson Crew gang, which entered the national consciousness in January 2003 when its members were the intended targets of a gang-on-gang shooting in the city. Two innocent teenagers died.

Others were tied to the Raider’s group from nearby West Bromwich, which was strongly allied to the Johnson Crew.

The defendants were part of a masked gang of 41 who were armed with firebombs as they broke in and ransacked the Barton Arms pub.

Furniture was removed from the Victorian pub to barricade the street outside before officers in riot vans arrived.

The officers came under fire as they attempted to disperse the crowd.

Birmingham Crown Court heard the police helicopter tracked the group as it moved across Aston and recorded individuals twice taking aim and shooting at the aircraft.
The incident ended when firearms officers attended the scene and arrested three of the men. The other three were linked to the scene through forensic work, mobile phone evidence and police intelligence.
Sentencing, Judge Davis said: ‘The intention was to endanger life. Although no physical injury was suffered, that was wholly a matter of luck. Had the police helicopter been struck, the consequences could have been catastrophic.



The Crown alleges that the officers had been lured into the area by the pre-planned arson attack



Mr Lockhart QC told the court: 'As many as four guns were present. Scientific evidence confirms that'

‘There may have been no physical injury to a police officer, but the damage to the wellbeing of the city of Birmingham caused by an armed gang prepared to act in this way was grave.

‘It is very difficult to conceive a case of this type more serious than this one.’

The judge said the disorder happened during a ‘wave of lawlessness’ which had ‘swept through a number of English cities’ last August, including elsewhere in Birmingham.

Francis, of Great Barr, Birmingham, was jailed for 30 years. The Raiders gang member was said to have had a ‘deep antipathy towards the police’. Fellow Raider Lewis, of Oldbury, West Midlands, and Laidley, of Nechells, Birmingham, were jailed for 23 years.

Collins, from Luton, and Farrell, from Finchfield, Wolverhampton, were each sentenced to 18 years.
Rehman, of Aston, was sentenced to 12 years detention. An order banning his identification was lifted after the sentencing.

Outside court, the detective who led the investigation said it had been a ‘miracle’ nobody was killed as a result of the disorder.

Detective Inspector Andy Bannister said the gang lured police officers into an ambush by setting fire to the pub.

‘These people showed a wanton disregard for the crew of the helicopter, the unarmed officers on the ground, members of the public and the people inside the Bartons Arms pub,’ he said.
‘This may have happened on the same evening as the other disorder, but this was not about looting.

‘I have never come across a case where the offenders have shown such a blatant disregard for the lives of police officers.

‘The officers were in extreme danger and the shots that flew over the heads would have hit them if the gunmen had lowered their hands by a fraction.

‘We could easily be looking at a murder investigation. They are a cowardly group of people.

‘There is no kudos from shooting a gun at officers who are out protecting the local community.’

DI Bannister said the attack was ‘planned and orchestrated’ with the pub set alight as a ‘tactic to draw as many police as possible into the area’.

DEADLY RIVALRY BETWEEN CITY'S GANGSTERS




Victims: Charlene Ellis, pictured second left and Latisha Shakespeare, right, died when they were caught in the crossfire of gangland warfare in Birmingham in 2003

The Barton Arms lies on the A34 arterial route to the north of Birmingham. It is a road which for two decades has acted as the unofficial boundary separating the city’s two main gangs.

The Johnson Crew, based in Lozells to the west, and Burger Bar Boys (BBB), east of the road in Aston, took their names from two cafes where black youths congregated in the early 1980s.

The two groups were originally part of the same organisation, but legend has it the BBBs fell out with the Johnson Crew in a row over a game of Streetfighter on a computer.

By the late 1980s, the Johnson Crew controlled most of the city’s drug supply and were prominent in nightclub security.
They were making tens of thousands of pounds a week. Killings linked to their escalating drugs turf war began in the mid-1990s. Between 1999 and 2005, gun crime in the city rose by 500 per cent.

But it was the murders of Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17, in January 2003 which brought Birmingham’s gang warfare sharply into national focus.

The innocent teenagers were gunned down at a New Year party in Aston in a drive-by attack by BBB members who were attempting to hit a member of the rival gang.

While the BBBs were considered the more ruthless, the Johnson Crew were the more organised.

By then, their numbers were swelled by affiliations with newer gangs such as the West Bromwich-based Raiders – of which rioters Nicholas Francis and Jermaine Lewis were said to be members – and the Cash4Money Crew.

Their ranks also included women – once considered useful only for providing alibis and to look after their men, but by then on the streets with weapons of their own.

It was a hit by the Raiders just a month earlier which led to the double murder which became known as the ‘New Year killings’.

On December 6, 2002, BBB member Yohanne Martin, 24, was shot dead as he sat in his car in West Bromwich High Street by assailants linked to the Raiders.

The prosecution in the New Year shootings trial claimed his brother, Nathan, one of four men to be convicted over the murders of Miss Ellis and Miss Shakespeare, was ‘blinded by hatred’ because of the attack on his brother.
When a teenage woman and member of the Johnson-affiliated Raiders was charged in connection with the death, he had the evidence he needed and began planning a revenge attack.

The Aston double murder was a watershed moment in the Birmingham underworld – marking the point at which women became legitimate targets in the turf war between its two main rivals.

Amardeep Bassey, a journalist who has written a book on the subject, said at the time: ‘From that moment on women in gangs were seen as fair game.
I don’t think anyone deliberately went out looking for girls, but there was a sense that if they were in the way and got hurt, it wouldn’t matter the way it might have done before.’



END

This disgusts me what they did, they destroyed many good hard working people's lives and businesses. I expect they will be out of jail after only serving half of those sentences. The UK is very lenient on jail sentences even for murder, so Im surprised they even got the sentence they did, but it was still not enough.

Imagine what they would have received in the US for this??? I doubt they would ever have seen the light of day ever again.
Deport the lot of them to where they originated from.......

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