A YOUNG man who blasted a Stratford teenager with a sawn-off shotgun, causing such severe injuries that the victim had to have his leg amputated, has been jailed.
But despite being the one who fired the shot, Abdi Ali was sentenced to only eight years – even though his accomplice who had wanted to use a knife instead had been given 13 years.
The 19-year-old, of St Peters Road, Leicester, and 18-year-old Ethan Kirkwood, of Ackleton Grove, Weoley Castle, Birmingham, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to causing grievous bodily harm with intent and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Kirkwood was sentenced in early July, but Judge Sylvia de Bertodano said then she wanted more time to consider Ali’s case following submissions made by his barrister.
Prosecutor John O’Higgins had said in November last year there was an incident in which a member of a drugs gang was stabbed and robbed.
It was thought a 17-year-old Stratford youth, who cannot be named because of his age, was involved, and Ali and Kirkwood were instructed to go to Stratford to ‘hurt him.’
In the early hours of December 4 last year, they turned up at an address in Brookside Road, with Ali armed with a sawn-off shotgun and Kirkwood with a knife.
After discussing which weapon to use, with Kirkwood in favour of stabbing him, Ali blasted him in the leg with the shotgun before they made off, but were later arrested.
Despite the efforts of surgeons after the victim had been rushed to hospital, his lower leg had to be amputated.
Mr O’Higgins added the teenager now has a prosthetic lower leg.
Justin Jarmola, for Ali, who lives with his parents and five sisters, having come to this country from Somalia when he was three, ‘was utilised to an extent by older criminal influences to do their bidding.’
He pointed out Ali himself had been stabbed in 2016 by an attacker who was subsequently jailed for eight years, and then, due to his co-operation with the police over that, he was stabbed again, although not so seriously, in July last year.
Gerard Cullen, for Kirkwood, said he wanted to make an “unmitigated apology” to the victim.
Addressing Ali and Kirkwood, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told them: “You are here because there had been some controversy among Leicestershire and Warwickshire drug dealers.
“You two were told by those higher up that a young man was involved in it, although I can see no evidence that he was, and you were instructed to sort it out by causing him injury.
“It is accepted you were set up by others to go and hurt this man, and that threats were made to you and your families.
“However, the fact is that you had a choice as to how to deal with this, and your choice was to go to the flat.”
