Two deny killing student struck by road sign during ‘turf war’

Rival groups of Somalis and Bengalis, some armed with sticks and metal bars, clashed in the Darnall area of the city in March this year.

Sheffield Crown Court was told yesterday the violence was sparked by a fight a month earlier between a 17-year-old Bengali and a Somali youth.

Amid escalating tensions between the communities, 18-year-old Somali Sheffield Hallam University engineering student Abdulla Mohammed lost his life.

Prosecutor Simon Myerson QC told the jury Aminur Rahman, 20, was driving a car in which Nizamul Hoque, 19, and Mohammed Kahar, 19, were passengers. It was the prosecution’s case that this was driven deliberately towards a group of pedestrians standing on the pavement. The car hit a triangular sign which fell on top of Mr Mohamed, who lived in Burngreave, Sheffield, killing him.

Mr Myerson said: “This incident was not racially based, in reality this was just a turf war.”

Hoque, of Handsworth, and Kahar, from Darnall, both deny manslaughter. The prosecution allege as passengers they are criminally responsible.

“The deceased and some friends were standing on the pavement,” Mr Myerson said. “The prosecution say the car was deliberately driven towards the group and towards them on the pavement and as they scattered the sign hit him. It was the last act in a day of arguments and violence between young men in the Darnall and Pitsmoor/Burngrave areas of Sheffield.”

After Mr Mohamed was knocked over by the sign comments were heard from bystanders that “You have got the wrong people.”

Mr Myerson said the young men from Darnall were from the Bengali community and those from Burngreave were Somalis.

On February 23 this year there had been a fight between Shahid Miah, a 17-year-old Bengali, and Somali Ali Mohammed.

On Thursday March 10, Shahid Miah was again attacked by a group of Somali males and needed hospital treatment for a broken nose and cuts and bruises.

There was widespread violence on March 17, the day Mr Mohamed died, which began when a group of eight Somalis, aged about 17, went out looking for Shahid Miah. The plan, Mr Myerson told the court, was for a one-on-one fight with the rest of the teenagers stopping anyone else getting involved.

They took a No 52 bus to Staniforth Road, Darnall, where their presence was noted and a large group of Asians gathered.

The rival groups soon began fighting.

By this time Rahman was driving Hoque and Kahar around the area.

Witnesses saw the Somalis being chased, punched, kicked and hit with baseball bats by the larger Bengali group.

Mr Myerson told the jury that Rahman then arrived with the two defendants and blocked the road. A series of fights broke out. Police attended and the group of eight Somalis went home.

Later, the court heard, Shahid Miah found Somalis trying to kick in the door of his house in Darnall and he rang Rahman for help.

Reports of the expedition to Darnall by the young Somalis had reached Burngreave and a group of older Somalis, including Abdulla Mohamed, went to Darnall.

Mr Myerson said witnesses saw Rahman’s car “flying about” with the two defendants in the Darnall area from 5pm until the death of Mr Mohamed around 7pm.

Hoque and Kahar knew Rahman was “prepared to use the car as an instrument for causing trouble” he told the court.

The trial continues.