Five jailed for East End drive-by shooting
Five men involved in a drive-by shooting in Mile End have been jailed today for a minimum total of 39 years.
The men had all denied their part in the incident in Devons Road last March but were found guilty following a trial at the Old Bailey.
Eugene Newland, 20, of Omega Close, Isle of Dogs, will serve a minimum of 12 years for attempted murder.
Twenty-three-year-old Vernon Lee, of Charnwood Gardens, Millwall, was jailed for a minimum of eight years i for grievous bodily harm and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The judge sentenced Anton Ekprikpo, 22, of Stewart Street, Isle of Dogs, to serve a minimum of eight years in prison for grievous bodily harm.
Kiley Brown, 33, of Shaw Crescent, Stepney, was given an indeterminate sentence to serve a minimum of seven years in prison for grievous bodily harm with intent.
A fifth man 35-year-old Brenton Roper of Burgess Street, Bow, was jailed for four years for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
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The men were all jailed after violence erupted in the streets of East London in March last year.
Shortly before midnight on 6 March, Brown, Roper and another man left a pub in Devons Road and got into Brown’s Audi A3 which was parked outside.
They were then approached by four men on two high-powered motorbikes who began firing shots at the Audi. The Audi began to chase the bikes, whose riders continued to shoot at the car and one of the men was shot in the shoulder.
One of the bikes crashed in Burdett Road in Mile End and both men riding it who were later identified as Lee and Newland left the scene.
The Audi continued to chase the second bike which also crashed, in Copperfield Road, near the Ragged School Museum. The rider made off and has never been identified but the pillion passenger, Ekprikpo, was impaled upside down on a fence.
He was approached by Brown who took a gun from him and shot him four times. Brown then handed the gun to Roper who made off.
Brown and Ekprikpo were arrested at the scene with the others involved identified later and also arrested.
Ekprikpo was taken to the Royal London Hospital in a serious condition with gunshot wounds and collision injuries but later recovered.
