Drive-by shooting of girl, nine, was supposed to be ‘smash and grab'
The young victim was eating dinner with her family when the rider of a Ducati Monster motorbike fired six shots outside Evin restaurant in Kingsland High Street in Dalston, east London, on May 29 last year.
A bullet lodged in the girl's brain and three men sitting an another table were wounded in the thigh, leg and backbone, the Old Bailey has heard.
Javon Riley allegedly picked up the gunman nearby in a stolen Nissan Juke on false plates before transferring to a Range Rover in north London.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Riley, 33, admitted being involved in various lucrative crimes but denied knowing about the planned shooting said to be linked to a Turkish gang feud.
He claimed he had been contacted by a 'third party' and offered around £40,000 to be involved in a 'smash and grab' robbery of 60 kilos of drugs.
His role was to be the driver for a two-man bike 'snatch team', neither of whom he ever met, jurors heard.
Defence barrister Tyrone Smith KC said: 'You have described the person who contacted you as a third party. What's his name?'
Riley said: 'I cannot give his name.'
Mr Smith pressed: 'Three men have been shot and a nine-year-old girl, you understand that? You understand a whole host of people want answers to what happened on May 29. Can you tell me the name of the third party?'
The defendant replied: 'I cannot give you that. I fear for my safety and my family.'
Mr Smith said: 'You are in custody. If you are in custody why are you in fear for your own life?'
Riley said: 'It's not just my life but my family too. They can get me anyway.'
He told jurors that he had three children with two different partners, as well as at least four other girlfriends or 'friends with benefits' living around London.
Asked what he had thought the plan was at the time, Riley said: 'That it was just going to be a robbery, a smash and grab.'
The defendant went on to admit he had carried out reconnaissance and was 'spotting' for the targets of the robbery.
He was provided with an image of one of the male victims, saying: 'I was just told it was going to be a group of friends sitting outside the restaurant.'
Asked why he never checked whether the other members of the robbery team were capable, Riley told jurors: 'If someone is putting me in a robbery, they are not putting me with idiots. There is no need to ask them 'do you know what you are doing, do you know your stuff?'.'
Mr Smith asked: 'Do you accept the evidence shows you on 29th May drove the gunman from Colvestone Crescent shortly after he had shot and injured three men and a young girl?'
The defendant replied: 'Yes.'
Mr Smith went on: 'At the time did you know he had shot those people at the restaurant?'
Riley replied: 'No.'
Mr Smith said: 'Were you part of a plan or agreement that a shooting take place that night?'
Riley, who grew up in Walthamstow after emigrating from Jamaica as a boy, denied it.
The prosecution has alleged the shooting was a 'planned assassination' amid a dispute between rival gangs, the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Turks, also known as the 'Bombacilars'.
The men seated outside the restaurant had affiliations towards the Hackney Turks and the ones who had ordered the shooting were from the Tottenham Turks, it is claimed.
Riley told jurors he was aware of the two gangs but had no dealings with them and played no role in their long-running dispute.
Earlier, Riley told jurors that he left college at 18 and was involved in 'various stuff of criminality' as well as setting up his own delivery business and having a stake in a clothes brand.
The court heard Riley has a string of convictions dating back to 2008 including for possession of cannabis and cocaine, driving offences, and having an offensive weapon and a blade in his car.
In addition, the defendant said he had been involved with stealing cars, drug dealing and robberies, although he had never been caught for those offences.
He said he began taking cars 'for fun' at the age of 15, going on to steal them to order and shipping them abroad.
He picked drug dealers to rob because the money could not be traced and the victims were unlikely to go to police, jurors heard.
The defendant said he would carry out between two and five robberies a month, sometimes working with others, and would make anything from £30,000 to more than £200,000.
Asked about his role in the robberies, Riley said: 'Sometimes I'm the driver or the muscle.'
Riley, from Tottenham, north London, has denied the attempted murder with others of Mustafa Kiziltan, Kenan Aydogdu and Nasser Ali.
He has also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the nine-year-old girl, who cannot be named because of her age.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
26 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Championship club WINS race to sign Brandon Williams – as former Manchester United star bids to rebuild his career
Hull City appear to have won the race for Brandon Williams. Earlier this week, Daily Mail Sport revealed that the former Manchester United starlet was being chased by clubs in the Championship and overseas. Interest had been piqued by Williams' form and attitude during a trial spell at Hull City. However, it can now be disclosed that the Tigers look to have won the race for the talented left back, with a medical due in East Yorkshire next week. Williams burst onto the scene at Old Trafford, making his debut at just 19 and winning rave reviews for his tenacity. He has been without a club for a year since the expiration of his contract at Old Trafford. Williams burst onto the scene at Manchester United making his debut at just 19 Williams made 21 Premier League appearances for United, and had loan spells at Ipswich Town and Norwich City. Earlier this year he expressed his desire to restart his career after being handed a suspended jail sentence for a 99mph car crash. Williams admitted charges of dangerous driving and driving without insurance.
BBC News
26 minutes ago
- BBC News
Teenage arrested after three shot in New York City's Times Square
A 17-year-old suspect has been arrested after three people were shot in New York City's Times Square in the early hours of rang out at around 01:20 EDT (05:20 GMT) at West 44th Street and Seventh Avenue, below the towering billboards in one of the world's busiest tourist teenager has not been named by police, and charges were shooting comes three months before the election for New York mayor, and as President Donald Trump sends federal agents into the streets of Washington DC to crack down on crimes committed by young people. The shooting in Times Square erupted during a fight outside a Raising Cane's chicken restaurant. It stemmed from a dispute, according to the New York Police Department. A handgun was recovered at the say a 19-year-old man was shot in the foot, a 65-year-old man was hit in the left leg and an 18-year old woman was grazed in the were all admitted to hospital in a stable month, a gun attack on an office building left four workers dead in Midtown Manhattan. The suspected gunman, a 27-year-old from Nevada, was believed to be targeting the National Football League (NFL) to New York police, the city has seen historically low levels of gun violence in recent months. The city recorded the fewest shootings and gunshot victims on record in the first seven months of Friday, Trump ordered federal agents into the streets of Washington DC to curb "totally out of control" levels of DC's homicide rate remains relatively high compared to other US cities, with a total of 98 such killings recorded so far this year. Homicides have been trending higher in the US capital compared with a decade ago. But federal data from January shows that Washington DC last year recorded its lowest overall violent crime figures - once car-jacking, assault and robberies are incorporated - in 30 years. The city had the highest per capita murder rate in the US during the 1990s. On Saturday, Trump announced plans on Truth Social to host a news conference at the White House on Monday, "which will, essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, DC".
Times
26 minutes ago
- Times
Alex Salmond and the truth behind our fallout, by Nicola Sturgeon
In the dining room of my house in Glasgow on April 4, 2018, with just him and me across a table, Alex showed me a copy of the letter he had received from the Scottish government's permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, informing him of the complaints against him. The substance of the complaints, one in particular, shocked me. I felt sick. After appearing to be upset and mortified by the allegations, Alex became cold. He effectively admitted the substance of one of the complaints, but claimed that it had been a 'misunderstanding', for which he had apologised at the time. He made it obvious that he considered the whole process to be illegitimate. He would later claim differently, of course, but it was evident that he wanted me to intervene and to stop the investigation in its tracks or divert it into some kind of siding. I knew that I shouldn't do that. I didn't realise it then, but this decision made the break-up of one of the most successful partnerships in modern British politics all but inevitable. On the day before the Scottish government was due to publish the facts and outcome of the investigation, the story was leaked to the Daily Record. I do not know who leaked it, but it was not me or anyone acting with my authority or knowledge. It crossed my mind many times that it might have been Alex himself or someone acting on his behalf. To those with no experience of the dark arts of media manipulation, I know this will sound preposterous. However, in many ways it would have been classic Alex. I had known him to make these kinds of calculations in the past. If there is damaging information certain to emerge about you and there is nothing you can do to stop it, get it out in a way that gives you the best chance of controlling the narrative. At a stroke, he was able to cast himself as the victim of underhand dealing. As soon as the fact of the complaints had become public, Alex launched a judicial review of the process. As the government's defence was being prepared, it came to light that the investigating officer had engaged in conversations with the complainants prior to her appointment. There was no evidence that the investigating officer had been biased, but the Scottish government had no option but to abandon the case. • Nicola Sturgeon: 'I came perilously close to a breakdown' In Alex's narrative, he wasn't just a victim any more, he was now a vindicated victim. It was also at this point that his animus towards me was cemented. He was reportedly furious that I hadn't demanded the resignation of Leslie Evans. Leslie was the head of the civil service that had 'botched' the process. It was not unreasonable to say that the buck stopped with her. But I knew that, for him, Leslie's resignation was not about accountability. It was about vengeance. He wanted her punished for allowing him to be investigated in the first place. He would then have used her quitting as further 'proof' that he had been a victim all along. When evidence was disclosed in both the aborted judicial review action and his criminal trial in March 2020, a number of text and WhatsApp messages were revealed to him, some between women complainers and others involving SNP staff members. He spun these as evidence of people conspiring to bring him down, rather than simply what they were — messages between individuals who had loyally supported him over many years expressing deep upset at the nature of the allegations against him. In addition, women who considered themselves victims of his behaviour were seeking support and comfort from each other. That he tried to distort and weaponise genuine expressions of shock, in some cases trauma, was truly disgraceful, and it strikes at the heart of why I find it so hard to forgive him. A conspiracy against Alex would have needed a number of women deciding to concoct false allegations, without any obvious motive for doing so. It would then have required criminal collusion between them, senior ministers and civil servants, the police and the Crown. That is what he was alleging. The 'conspiracy' was a fabrication, the invention of a man who wasn't prepared to reflect honestly on his own conduct. This is what I found hardest to come to terms with. He was acquitted of criminal behaviour, but in the course of his defence a picture emerged of behaviour towards women that, on occasion, had been inappropriate. He seemed content during his trial to concede this, to persuade a jury that while he could have been a 'better man', he wasn't guilty of actual offences. What he never did was show any contrition. There was also never the merest hint of concern about the damage he did to the party he previously led. Indeed, it felt to me that he would have rather destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him. He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy — government, police, Crown Office. He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all. After the reports of the two inquiries into mine and the Scottish government's handling of the matter had been published, I spoke personally to the two original complainants. I was the first minister during a Scottish government process that had let these women down. It was important to me to say sorry to them directly. It also let me hear first-hand the impact on them of the claims of conspiracy, and the scars they bear as a consequence. For a while I told myself that the bonds between Alex and me would be stronger than his thirst for revenge. Eventually, though, I had to face the fact that he was determined to destroy me. I was now engaged in mortal political combat with someone I knew to be both ruthless and highly effective. It was a difficult reality to reconcile myself to. So too was losing him as a friend. I went through what I can only describe as a grieving process. For a time after we stopped speaking I would have conversations with him in my head about politics and the issues of the day. I had occasional, vivid dreams in which we were still on good terms. I would wake up from these feeling utterly bereft. And now? Before he died, I thought I had reached the point of feeling nothing and that I had come to terms with it, wholly and completely. The emotions I felt on hearing of his death suggested otherwise. Yes, I have made peace with how things are, but it is an uneasy peace. I know I will never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death. © Nicola Sturgeon 2025. Extracted from Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon (Macmillan £28), published on Thursday. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members. Nicola Sturgeon discusses her memoir with Cathy Newman at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London SE1, on August 29;
