Jailed for 20 years: Gangster who shot rivals with pistol that killed girl, 15

 
Jailed: Andrew Gordon (left), and Shereka Marsh (Picture: Central News)
Paul Cheston10 March 2015
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A gangster who shot two rivals with a handgun later used to kill a 15 year-old girl has been jailed for 20 years.

Andrew Gordon, 26, blasted two men with the Birevetta 7.65mm pistol at point-blank range through their car window as they sat in traffic.

Afterwards, the gun was handed to a junior member of his gang — the Balance Boys of Hackney — for safekeeping.

The 15-year-old boy was showing off the weapon to girlfriend Shereka Fab-Ann Marsh in his bedroom when it went off, firing a bullet into her neck.

At the Old Bailey last year, the boy was jailed for nine years for manslaughter.

Now Gordon is behind bars after being found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and one of possession of a prohibited firearm.

Pistol: Shereka Fab-Ann Marsh, 15, who was shot dead with the gun (Picture: PA)

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard how he targeted Yahaya Ibrahim Usmen and Troy Strachan, of the rival Pembury Boys, after spotting them in Median Road, Lower Clapton, on February 21 last year. Gordon fired three shots through the car window, but two missed and the third grazed Usmen’s abdomen. A female passenger escaped unharmed. Judge Joanna Korner re-marked that Gordon was “either a terrible shot or suffered from nerves”.

He was chased and stabbed by Ibrahim Usmen and Strachan before police arrived. He was arrested and taken to Homerton Hospital for treatment.

Shereka was killed in Hackney the following month. Richard Brown, headteacher at Urswick School, called her “one of our shining stars ... an en-gaging, bubbly personality. She would have done really well in her GCSEs.”

Jailed: Andrew Gordon, 26, blasted two men with the Birivetta 7.65mm pistol (Picture: Central News)

Her boyfriend, who cannot be named, said other gang members gave him the weapon. He was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter after telling jurors he accidentally pulled the trigger. The judge said the boy was “intending to frighten” Shereka when he “pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger” without realising it was loaded.

Neither Ibrahim Usmen nor Strachan testified at Gordon’s trial. Ibrahim Us-men even told police Gordon was not the attacker, after allegedly switching gang allegiances. Gordon, of Hackney, has a 2008 conviction for firearm possession. His father and uncle are already serving life terms for murder.

Sentencing him yesterday, Judge Korner said: “There were pedestrians and a large amount of traffic and the shots you fired could have caused injury to others. You went up to this window and fired three shots, as it transpired you were either a terrible shot or suffering from nerves.

“One of the more extreme features of this case, and a reflection perhaps of the violence of gang culture, is that [the targets] bypassed the judicial process, caught you on an estate and proceeded to exact revenge there and then.

“Indeed, of the injuries caused it seems yours were the most serious.”

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