Mum prays for son shot outside church as gun crime spreads

13 July 2007

A mum watches as her shot son is liften into ambulance

EXCLUSIVE By Jessica Smith

A DISTRAUGHT mum watches her blood-soaked son being carried into an ambulance minutes after he was gunned down outside a packed Sunday church service.

The church where the shooting happened after prayers

Churchgoers had fled in terror after the 23-year-old was shot twice by a leather-clad gunman riding pillion on a motorbike outside an East End Pentecostal church.

The pastor, The Rev Charles Newman, rushed to the man's aid as he lay bleeding in his courtyard.

"A church should be a place for worship... a haven for people," he said.

The gunman had been lying in wait with an accomplice at the New Bethel Revival Ministry church in Crown Close, off Wick Lane in Bow.

They lured their target outside with a text message as he sat in the church with his mother, asking him to come out to his car.

He came out and waited in his car, when the motorbike pulled up and the pillion passenger fired at him.

But miraculously the gun jammed. He ran off, dodging the gunmen, and hid behind a car, then ran out across the street towards the church thinking he was safe.

But the gunman spotted him and shot him in the back and leg.

He collapsed bleeding in the church courtyard, while the gunman and his accomplice sped off towards the A12 nearby.

Crowds of women and children witnessed the shooting as they were leaving the service.

Church elders rushed the children back inside, while Mr Newman and nurses who were at the service tried to stop the blood flowing from the man's wounds.

Mr Newman said: "His mother came out, saw him lying there and thought he was dying. She was weeping for her son."

Paramedics arrived and the man was taken to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

Advertiser reader Peter Downie, who took the picture of the shot man being lifted into the ambulance, heard the shots and saw a van driver try to knock the gunmen off the motorbike as they sped away.

But they got past him and raced towards the A12.

Det Con Gary Hart, from Scotland Yard's Operation Trident black-on-black gun crime squad, said after the shooting: "We have no idea of the motive at the moment. The victim believes it's a case of mistaken identity. He's very traumatised."

The wounded man was discharged from hospital the next day. Police said bullets remain in his body.

He had only been a member of the church for a few weeks.

"He is someone who is trying to change," said Pastor Newman.

"This will be a great lesson for kids to keep away from the street."

Mr Newman now wants other religious leaders to join him in a campaign against the East End's growing gun crime.

The July 9 shooting is the latest incident in a growing gun culture on the streets.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the shooting outside the New Bethel church in Crown Close, off Wick Lane, around 5pm.