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Police ‘did not suppress news of shooting’
POLICE last night denied trying to suppress news of a drive-by shooting in Leeds – the latest of more than 20 shootings to plague the streets of West Yorkshire in 18 months.
Jamie George, 22, who was a witness for the prosecution over a shooting outside Planet Venus nightclub in Bradford last November, was blasted in the back and legs with a shotgun.
The incident happened as he walked down Queenshill Drive in Moortown on Thursday night, when shots are believed to have been fired from a car.
West Yorkshire Police, who inform the media of most crimes – from muggings to murders – did not announce the shooting to the press.
Yesterday they said they did not have enough details to release.
And they deny that, faced with a rising tide of violent crime on the streets of Leeds and Bradford, they did not want yet another shooting to be widely reported.
A spokeswoman said: “We didn’t have enough information to put out at the time and had to make sure things were properly checked out. We can’t put out misleading information, and we did respond to a call we received from the media.
“You cannot suppress this type of information because it’s there on the streets, people know about it and talk about it.
“We weren’t trying to hide anything. That is simply not the case. It’s not a case of us deliberately holding things back.”
But last night the police were criticised for not making the shooting public.
Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East, said he was shocked and upset that he had heard news of the incident through a local shopkeeper.
“I didn’t believe him at first, to be honest, because I was sure I would have been told,” he said. “I’m extremely angry and very disappointed.
“Of course the press should always be informed, and the fact that I only got to find out by a rumour from a shopkeeper is quite extraordinary. Something has quite clearly gone wrong.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Johnathan Brown, who represents Leeds North, said: “It’s distressing if these things aren’t being reported by the police.
“They shouldn’t be selective about that sort of information and they shouldn’t try and make out the area doesn’t have these sorts of problems, which is what they’re doing really.”
Police have faced mounting public concern at the number of gun attacks on the streets of West Yorkshire, particularly in Bradford and Leeds.
Mr George had appeared for the prosecution in the trial of Khawar Butt and Dean Carden at Leeds Crown Court earlier this month. Butt, 22, of Sandford Road, Bradford, was jailed for 12 years after being found guilty on two counts of malicious wounding with intent and one of possessing firearm with intent to endanger life.
Carden, 22, of Moortown, received nine years after admitting identical charges.
The court heard the pair had lain in wait outside the club and blasted Gemma Tuohey, 17, and Dane Barratt, 19, from a car. Earlier Butt had chased Mr George with an axe, narrowly missing him as he hurled it.
Police yesterday declined to name the victim of the shooting, but sources confirmed it was Jamie George.
The shooting is the latest in a series in West Yorkshire this year.
In July former rugby league player David Nelson and his friend Joseph Montgomery were shot dead in a pub in Seacroft, Leeds. A man has been charged with murdering them.
A week before that, father-of-two Hugh Scott was gunned down in the car park of the Hayfield pub in Chapeltown, Leeds, and three men were injured. A man is awaiting trial in connection with the incident.
Also in July, a man was seriously injured as he tried to flee from his home in Little London, Leeds, when confronted by a gang of at least seven men.
Last year the killing of Craig Mirfield was the first in a series of more than 20 in Leeds and Bradford.
Mr Mirfield was shot at point-blank range in his car in March last year, near his home in Gipton, Leeds.
In an unrelated case three days earlier, a doorman at a pub in Moortown was peppered with shotgun pellets later linked to two shootings in Chapeltown.
Evidence linking two men to the shootings was ruled inadmissible but the pair, both from London, were jailed for a total of 19 years in June for the shooting of a 20-year-old man who suffered a leg injury when he was attacked in Bradford in April last year.
That shooting came hours after Leeds man Frank Birley died from a single shot to the head in an incident in Meanwood.
The bodies of Dennis Wilson, from Manchester, and Clifton Bryan, of Chapeltown – who had survived an attempt on his life a few weeks earlier – were found the following month dumped in Harehills, shot in the back of the head. Three men were earlier this year found not guilty of their killings.
In Bradford, Safdar Khan, 23, from Girlington in the city, was jailed for life in June for murdering 26-year-old Destor Coleman following a dispute at the Young Lion Cafe in the Manningham area last year.
Two men were jailed for life in June for the shooting of Jayne Thompson, 29, who died at her home in Rothwell, Leeds, last October after the pair came to rob her husband.
kate.o’hara@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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