A 17-year-old girl was killed in drive-by shooting the day after a rapper was beaten and humiliated on social media following a series of violent “tit for tat” attacks between rival North London gangs, a court has heard.
Jurors were told Tanesha Melbourne-Blake, who had been outside playing a “penny up” game with friends, may not have been the intended target when she was gunned down in Tottenham seven years ago.
Marcus La-Croix, 37, who raps under the name ‘Bobby Slater’, and Michael Clarke, known as ‘Da Gaffa’, both deny murdering the teenager in a “ride-out” after La-Croix was attacked by rivals at a diner the night before.
The Old Bailey heard how the teenager, who had been dancing and socialising with her friends, was walking up Chalgrove Road, Tottenham, shortly after 9pm on 2 April 2018 when she was shot with a weapon aimed from the rear window of a passing Vauxhall Meriva.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said she “selflessly” shouted for her friend to duck before turning to him and saying: “Jace, I’ve been shot”.
She asked for him to call her mother as she collapsed on the floor, but quickly became pale and stopped breathing, the court heard. By the time police and ambulance crews arrived, a large crowd had gathered.
Ms Melbourne-Blake was pronounced dead at 10.43pm after a single bullet wound to her right breast caused “severe and uncontrollable bleeding”, Ms Ledward told the jury, adding that the nature of her injuries suggest she was ducking or leaning forwards when she was hit.
Members of the teenager’s family left the courtroom as details of her final moments were read out.
Witnesses described seeing three bright sparks like “fireworks” and hearing the “pap, pap, pap” of three bullets being fired from the vehicle, the court heard.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary about this particular evening, and none of the group knew of any reason why anyone would wish to harm Tanesha or any of them,” Ms Ledward told the jury.
The court heard shooting happened amid “longstanding enmity” and “extreme levels of violence” between rivals the Northumberland Park Killers (NPK), also known as the “Sin Squad”, and the Wood Green Mob (WGM).
In February that year 22-year-old Kwabena Nelson was murdered in Tottenham, in so-called NPK territory, by a killer from Wood Green called Neron Quartey.
Just over a month later, Kelvin Odunuyi was shot dead in the Vue Cinema in Wood Green. Nobody has been charged with his murder.
Later that same day, a young man from Wood Green stabbed a student multiple times outside Haringey Sixth Form college in Tottenham.
“These incidents give some idea of the extreme levels of violence which characterised the disputes between NPK and WGM in the early part of 2018,” Ms Ledward said.
“But the murder of Tanesha Melbourne-Blake was not merely a continuation of that catalogue of violence – it had its own particular catalyst.”
CCTV footage played to the court showed Mr La-Croix, who has links to Wood Green, being subjected to a “violent, entirely gratuitous, sustained and targeted physical assault with kicks and punches” by four men from Northumberland Park as his girlfriend tried to defend him the day before the shooting.
The assault at the Tinsel Town diner in Farringdon, near the City of London, in the early hours of 1 April 2018 was filmed and widely circulated on social media in a series of posts “mocking” Mr La-Croix, including his own account after the attackers stole his mobile phone.
“Some of those posts were recovered by the police, and they give a flavour of the way in which this unprovoked and seemingly unexpected violent attack was turned into a very public humiliation,” Ms Ledward told the court.
Mr La-Croix was arrested on suspicion of murder on 6 April 2018 and interviewed under caution, but denied any involvement in the shooting, the jury were told.
The following day the silver Vauxhall Meriva – which was registered with false details – “exploded in a fireball” on Cockfosters Road in East London.
In police interview in 2020, Mr Clarke denied “plotting” with Mr La-Croix about “revenge” and making arrangements for the Vauxhall Meriva and gun – a Czechoslovakian CZ model 50 – to be used.
The court heard the pistol was found wrapped in a towel by a street cleaner in Haringey, north London, around a week after the shooting.
Jurors were told Mr La-Croix had confessed to the unsolved shooting in a conversation with a prisoner inside HMP Pentonville in 2020, in which they were “boasting and showing off” about their crimes.
“There are details he provided which he could not have got from anywhere else,” Ms Ledward added.
She told the court the attack on Mr La-Croix at the Tinsel Town diner was a “slight on him which the prosecution say he would not have been prepared to let lie” and the pair left their mobile phones at home in a sophisticated attempt to create a “digital alibi”.
The prosecution allege that Mr La-Croix and Mr Clarke were both in the car when the fatal shot was fired.
Both deny murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
Source: independent.co.uk
