Hackney Gazette
hg.editorial@archant.co.uk
16 December 2009
Do you want to show off your footie skills to top scouts?
The Academy of Sport East London, based in Hackney Wick is offering players the opportunity to trial for the under-18s semi professional football team.
The free trials will take place from Monday, December 21 to Wednesday, December 23, between 2pm and 4pm at Mabley Green Astro Turf in Lee Conservancy Road.
No Fee required, for more information please call Jason Fevrier 0208 533 4464 or 07939 958 416
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 21.30 GMT
- Article history
Stonebridge Estate in Harlesden, London. Photograph: David Levene
Fourteen-year-olds openly carried guns and the sound of bullets being fired was so common that few bothered to call 999. This was at the start of 2005, when the Stonebridge estate in Harlesden was the scene of all-out gang warfare, where the network of concrete blocks and walkways provided perfect cover for rival drug crews as police struggled to establish order.
The blood spilled on the north-west London estate that year included that of Jahmall Moore, the 24-year-old father-of-two whose death was the subject of supergrass Darren Mathurin's evidence at the Old Bailey over the last 10 weeks.
But it was not only young men caught up in crack cocaine and the violent repercussions of disputed territory whose murders police had to investigate. Wholly innocent blood was spilled too, such as that of seven-year-old Toni-Ann Byfield, who was shot at close range in 2004 in nearby Kensal Green in a fallout from the gang war. A year later, Connie and Lorna Morrison and their stepfather fell victim to a revenge killing by men who were in dispute with their brother. Lorna's nine-month-old son survived the attack but was found covered in his mother's blood in the family's house on the estate.
Mathurin was brought up among the 1960s concrete towers and began his life of crime there, dealing drugs at 13. It was the sort of place where, the jury were told, "the law of the jungle applies".
Built in the 1960s to house around 1,700 predominantly black households, Stonebridge gained a reputation for crack dealing and violent crime. The lifts never worked properly, leaving residents to climb up to 17 storeys, and the walkways provided escape routes from the police.
When Moore was killed by 16 bullets fired from three separate guns while getting into a car, Stonebridge was in transition. Redevelopment was under way, but the estate was still a haven for violent criminals. In those two years alone, Operation Trident investigated 48 shootings in Brent, the borough where the estate is located. Ten were fatal. Most, if not all, led back to Stonebridge. Even if the suspects didn't live there, they dealt or bought drugs there and knew the estate well.
"It was all-out war at that time," said Detective Inspector Stephen Horsley, a Trident officer. "There was a gang in Kensal Green known as Mus Love. They were well established and had fallen out with several other gangs, including the Stonebridge Gang. There were tit-for-tat shootings all the time and it was at this time that the murders we are dealing with took place.
"They were all dealing in crack cocaine and it was a fight for territory. Stonebridge was a series of concrete blocks with walkways between. It was difficult for police to get in and out. It was rife with drug dealing and violence."
Any police investigation into the killings was fraught with difficulties. Detectives faced a wall of silence, attempts to place undercover officers in the estate were almost impossible, and the chances of catching anyone who perpetrated the crimes was slim. In the Moore murder there was no forensic evidence, no weapons and a dearth of witnesses. For two years the case stalled, but in 2007 Mathurin, known as Spider, was convicted of conspiracy to kill Moore.
Facing a life sentence, Mathurin broke the law of the streets and did what was anathema to him and his friends: he chose to grass. He was taken into police protection, as were his family, and for months he was interviewed by officers not connected to Trident. He admitted another conspiracy to murder, possession of firearms and drugs offences.
As part of the protected witness system under the Serious and Organised Crime Act he was sentenced for these crimes and given eight years. His 16-year life tariff for conspiracy to murder Moore was then reduced by a judge last December by 75% and Mathurin was deemed ready to appear as a supergrass in court.
There was no doubt the police were excited by his decision to come forward: they had never had such an insight into the organised crime taking place in the area and hoped to clear up a long list of serious crime, including several murders.
His first test as the crown's star witness came in May when he gave evidence against Shakah Anderson, claiming he had shot dead two men at a Dizzee Rascal concert in aid of an anti-gun charity in 2002. But the jury rejected Mathurin's evidence and acquitted Anderson of the killings.
As Anderson walked free from the Old Bailey, prosecutors were left to decide whether to risk putting Mathurin before another jury. They took the gamble, and six months later came his greatest test with the trial of two men for Jahmall Moore's murder. The two men accused were Mathurin's friends. All three had gone on a drug-fuelled holiday to Ayia Napa with other associates after the shooting.
During a week in the witness box at the Old Bailey, Mathurin littered his testimony with street slang, which he was ordered to explain to the jury. To talk of going "out shooting" meant going to sell drugs; to "lick someone down" was to kill them. To "bun someone up" was to "burn them, ie shoot them", ditto to "touch" them.
He boasted that he would be out of prison by the time of the 2012 Olympics and admitted that he had lied repeatedly in the past. He claimed he was now telling the truth. But, like the jury in May, this jury were not convinced.
Romain Whyte, 26, walked free last week after being acquitted of both murder and conspiracy to murder. Although Roberto Parchment, 25, was found guilty of Moore's murder and sentenced to 28 years today, it was on the basis of evidence from the dead man's girlfriend who picked Parchment out in an identity parade, not the testimony of Mathurin.
Today the Stonebridge estate has been transformed but memories of the years of killing are still strong. If Mathurin ever shows his face he is unlikely to remain alive for long. As prosecutor Stephen Batten QC said: "He has betrayed his whole culture, whole ethos, his raison d'etre."
Comments (5)
Would you stand there watching somebody else kicking and punching? They were as guilty as the person doing the act 
