OFORI: INNOCENT VICTIM CAUGHT UP IN SHOOTING SPREE

An innocent motorist was shot dead in a ‘roadside execution’ by a group of killers out for revenge to settle a spate of tit-for-tat attacks, the Old Bailey heard today (Tues).

Unsuspecting Michael Ofori, 35, was sat in a car in a quiet residential street chatting to his estranged wife when he was gunned down.

The gunman, who had arrived on foot, fled to a waiting car and sped away.

Mr Ofori, who had been in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and died later in hospital.

Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee QC said the dead man had been mistakenly shot, and the real target had been in the same street or very close by.

‘The intended target of this roadside execution was in fact another person all together,’ he said.

‘To put it bluntly they killed the wrong man.’

Five men Sahid Sule and Nicholas Allon-McVytie, both 23, Jules Brown, 25, Nathaniel Valton, 21, and Kraig (CORR) Isaacs, 22, are all accused of involvement in the killing in a ‘joint enterprise’.

They had intended to shoot 24 year-old rival Perry Walters to settle an ongoing dispute with him and his younger brother Demcha Lewis (CORR), it was said.

Isaacs is said to have lured Walter to the area of Oslac Road in Catford, southeast London, on the night of June 22 and 23 last year.

‘The reason why Perry Walters was targeted was as a result of a spate of tit-for-tat shootings between rival factions that had commenced not long ago,’ said the prosecutor.

‘Walters and his brother in one camp and, if not all of these defendants, certainly some of them in another camp – and both sides with ready access to firearms.

‘Walters may have had other enemies but in this case it is these men who were his enemies.’

Isaacs was said to have ‘straddled both camps’ making him ideally suited to lure Walters to the scene of the shooting ‘under the benign guise of drug taking’.

Mr Jafferjee said Walters had no reason to suspect he was being tricked.

He ended up ‘in the area and very nearby, if not in the same street’ as Mr Ofori when he was shot shortly after midnight on June 23, the court was told.

Mr Ofori was talking to his estranged wife in his car at the time as she was due to go on holiday to Ghana within days.

‘As they chatted a man approached on foot and gunned him down while he was still sat in the drivers seat,’ said the prosecutor.

Valton is said to have been the hooded gunman who pulled the trigger. Allon-McVytie is alleged to have whisked him from the scene in a white van which had been parked nearby.

Mr Jafferjee said Sule was co-ordinating the attack and the movements of intended target Walters via mobile phone and Brown was the ‘eyes and ears’ of the gang located in a flat in the street where the shooting took place

Jurors heard Mr Ofori was in Oslac Road, Catford, southeast London, shortly after midnight

Allon-McVytie, of (28) Vanguard Street, Deptford, southeast London; Valton, from Deptford; and Brown, of (12) Eversleigh Road, Upton Park, east London; Sule, of no fixed address; and Isaacs, also from south London; deny murder.

The trial continues.
ENDS