This is an interview from when I edited The Hackney Post newspaper at City.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Monday, 3 March 2008
Brothers get 27 years for chef murder
by James Edgar, The Hackney Post
TWO brothers have been sentenced to at least 27 years in prison for shooting dead a 30-year-old chef in Hackney.
Craig Thoms was murdered as he arrived at the High Class Venue nightclub on Homerton High Street in the early hours of February 17 last year.
The jury heard how Junior Gordon, 40, from Brixton, south London and his brother Rohan Gordon, 37, from Forest Gate, east London, assassinated Mr Thoms as he got out of his car in a flurry of gunfire.
Passing life sentences at the Old Bailey, Judge Giles Forester said the two men, who had changed their pleas from not guilty to guilty during the course of their trial, should each serve a minimum of 27 years behind bars for their “cold and calculated crime”.
Mr Thoms was deliberately targeted by the pair because they blamed him for the death of their nephew nine years earlier, the court heard.
The victim’s best friend, Nicholas Nelson, 25, of Shepherd’s Bush, west London, who was also on trial for murder, walked free from court after being found not guilty.
Nelson, known as “Shortman”, claimed his innocence throughout the hearing and denied the prosecution’s claims that he coaxed Mr Thoms to the party where the brothers had planned to kill him.
Earlier in the trial Afab Jafferee, prosecuting, said: “To put it bluntly, he [Thoms] had been set up for execution. It was the ultimate betrayal of trust.”
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of Nelson talking to the Gordon brothers on the night of the murder, but he said they did not get on with each other.
Odette Worrell, Junior Gordon’s 34-year-old girlfriend, received a three-year jail term for her part in the crime after she was found guilty of assisting an offender.
The jury heard how she helped Gordon “lie low” in Luton after the murder and dispose of the distinctive clothing he was wearing.
Worrell, of no fixed address, is likely to be deported because she is living in Britain illegally.
http://hackneypost.co.uk/?p=35
TWO brothers have been sentenced to at least 27 years in prison for shooting dead a 30-year-old chef in Hackney.
Craig Thoms was murdered as he arrived at the High Class Venue nightclub on Homerton High Street in the early hours of February 17 last year.
The jury heard how Junior Gordon, 40, from Brixton, south London and his brother Rohan Gordon, 37, from Forest Gate, east London, assassinated Mr Thoms as he got out of his car in a flurry of gunfire.
Passing life sentences at the Old Bailey, Judge Giles Forester said the two men, who had changed their pleas from not guilty to guilty during the course of their trial, should each serve a minimum of 27 years behind bars for their “cold and calculated crime”.
Mr Thoms was deliberately targeted by the pair because they blamed him for the death of their nephew nine years earlier, the court heard.
The victim’s best friend, Nicholas Nelson, 25, of Shepherd’s Bush, west London, who was also on trial for murder, walked free from court after being found not guilty.
Nelson, known as “Shortman”, claimed his innocence throughout the hearing and denied the prosecution’s claims that he coaxed Mr Thoms to the party where the brothers had planned to kill him.
Earlier in the trial Afab Jafferee, prosecuting, said: “To put it bluntly, he [Thoms] had been set up for execution. It was the ultimate betrayal of trust.”
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of Nelson talking to the Gordon brothers on the night of the murder, but he said they did not get on with each other.
Odette Worrell, Junior Gordon’s 34-year-old girlfriend, received a three-year jail term for her part in the crime after she was found guilty of assisting an offender.
The jury heard how she helped Gordon “lie low” in Luton after the murder and dispose of the distinctive clothing he was wearing.
Worrell, of no fixed address, is likely to be deported because she is living in Britain illegally.
http://hackneypost.co.uk/?p=35
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