John Coffey QC and Richard Storey have secured the acquittal of a 24 year-old defendant charged with attempted murder at the St.Albans Crown Court (instructed by Lawtons Solicitors).

The Crown alleged that the defendant had been part of a three man team that had been driven to the scene by his brother, the co-defendant, and that he had used a silenced pistol to shoot the victim four times.

The dispute had allegedly arisen due to his co-defendant bribing a detention officer in the Bedfordshire Police to provide custody photographs of the victim.  The photographs were doctored to falsely portray the victim as a police informant.  When these photographs were placed on a false 'Facebook' page and shown around Bedford, the victim had feared for his life and had attended the home of the co-defendant where he threatened him physically and verbally.  Within an hour, the victim had been shot twice in the chest and twice in the arm, , surviving according to the Crown by sheer 'luck'.

At trial the victim and an eye witness present at the time refused to provide evidence of the shooting.  Without these witnesses the Crown adduced evidence of a '999' call made immediately after the shooting by the victim's wife containing the background conversations of the victim and associates naming the defendant and the co-defendant as responsible.  Further they also adduced extensive and detailed cell-site evidence placing the defendant and his co-defendant at the scene at the time of the shooting, as well as the descriptive evidence of numerous eye-witnesses to movements at three key locations.

After lenghthy legal submissions after the close of the Crown's case, His Honour Judge Michael Baker QC was persuaded to remove the case from the jury's consideration under s125 of the criminal Justice Act 2003 and ordered a 'not guilty' verdict on the count of attempted murder.

http://www.digitalhen.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-15338298