Hitman in revenge attack over car damage 'shot wrong victim'

Olwen Dudgeon

A HITMAN allegedly recruited to take revenge over a smashed car window shot the wrong person in the stomach, a jury was told.

The intended target was Daniel Wright but it was his father Christopher who was shot at close range in the kitchen of his home in Red Hall Chase, Whinmoor, Leeds, when he went to answer a knock on the back door, Leeds Crown Court heard.

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Mark McKone, prosecuting, told the court yesterday that as he got into the kitchen Mr Wright saw the door was already open and standing on the doorstep was a black man with a single-barrelled shotgun.

The gun was pointed at waist height and the barrel was about two yards from him when the gunman, without saying anything, pulled the trigger before running off leaving the victim with life-threatening injuries.

Mr McKone told the jury it was the Crown’s case that the gunman was Dwayne Mitchum, nicknamed BMX, who he claimed had been recruited by Ryan Coleman following an earlier incident involving damage to a Vauxhall Corsa car by Daniel Wright.

He said Coleman and Mitchum had travelled to the scene together in a Mitsubishi sports car while two other men, James Rushforth and Connor Ratcliffe, had gone there in the damaged Corsa to point out Mr Wright’s address.

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Mitchum, 26 and Coleman, 21, both deny conspiracy to murder Daniel Wright and an alternative charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm to him on April 6.

In addition Mitchum denies attempting to murder Christopher Wright or the alternative of causing him grievous bodily harm with intent, possessing a shotgun with intent to endanger life all on April 6 and possessing a prohibited firearm – a pistol and four further charges relating to ammunition on later dates,

Mr McKone told the jury Rushforth and Ratcliffe had been in the Corsa earlier on the evening of the shooting along with a girl, Esther Innes-Smith, when they saw Daniel Wright on the corner of Red Hall Chase.

He had previously gone out with Miss Innes-Smith who was by then in a relationship with Ratcliffe’s brother Ben, but bad feeling remained between him and her, threatening text messages having been exchanged after their separation.

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Mr McKone said because of that ill feeling, before walking over to the car Mr Wright had concealed a piece of exhaust pipe down his trousers.

When one of the windows went down a few inches and Miss Innes-Smith shouted at him, he used the pipe to smash the window.

Mr McKone told the jury although Ratcliffe was driving the Corsa it was the Crown’s case it belonged to Coleman, who had acquired it four or five days earlier.

“Trivial though it may seem the prosecution say the smashing of the window of the car belonging to Ryan Coleman is the reason for the shooting in this case.”

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The Corsa was driven to the nearby Wellington public house on Wetherby Road where Ratcliffe phoned Coleman and reported the damage.

It was alleged he recruited Mitchum and they then went to the Wellington pub before both cars were driven to Red Hall Chase. The address of Mr Wright was pointed out to Mitchum and only he went inside.

“Mitchum did not know the intended victim, he did not realise it was the wrong man,” he said.

He told the jury both Connor Ratcliffe and James Rushforth had admitted conspiracy to assault Daniel Wright, which had been accepted by the prosecution on the basis they thought he would receive a beating and did not know a gun was going to be used.

They would given evidence for the prosecution that Mitchum was the gunman.

The trial continues.