Teenage gang sentenced to 32 years for vicious attacks

The eight-strong gang, the youngest of whom was just 13, terrorised residents in south-west London with weapons and carried out at least 56 robberies in the area.

The teenagers carried knives and mallets as they conducted the terrifying robberies between December and July 2007 in the Tooting, Balham and Wandsworth areas.

Today a judge at Kingston Crown Court said the gang "hunted like a pack of wild dogs" and sentenced the members to between 24 months and seven years behind bars.

Judge Nicholas Price QC said: “You all hunted like a pack of wild dogs intent on seeking out your prey and treating them without mercy.”

He added that reporting restrictions for some of the members were lifted as: “What they did is so serious that it is in the public interest that their names should be published.”

The gang members, who called themselves G-Block after Gearing Close - the Wandsworth street where three of them lived - wore dark clothing for their attacks.

They covered their faces with scarves, balaclavas, and on one occasion, masks from horror film Scream.

Judge Price said the gang “gloried in notoriety” by posing for photographs together and posting messages about the robberies on the internet.

He added: “A very disturbing factor is that as time went by, the attacks grew even more vicious.

“It appeared you derived more pleasure from gratuitous violence than from the robberies themselves.”

The 18-year-old ringleader, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to seven years in a young offenders’ institution after admitting conspiracy to rob.

Peter Hyatt, 18, of Lessingham Avenue, Tooting and Jerome Blake, 15, of Hadlow Place, Crystal Palace, were both sentenced to four-and-a-half years in a young offenders’ institution, having been found guilty of conspiracy to rob after the trial at Kingston Crown Court.

The other gang members admitted the same charge.

Akheem Gray, 16, of Tulse Hill and Abdi Nur, 18 of Gearing Close were detained for four years. His brother Ameel Gray, of Mitcham, was detained for three-and-a-half years.

The eldest member of the gang, 19-year-old Lufter Ahmed, of Gearing Close, was sentenced to three years and nine months in a young offenders’ institution.

Jordan Rattray, 17, also of Gearing Close, was given a 24-month detention and training order.

Judge Price said not all gang members participated in all robberies, but told the teenagers: “It is clear that you set out in a pack hunting for vulnerable victims.”

The court heard how in the first robbery, on July 18, 2007, Carolyn Doughty and Quinton Newell were confronted by the gang as they walked home from a night out.

The pair were separated from each other before the ringleader attacked Ms Doughty.

Prosecutor Heather Norton said he “stamped his foot on her collarbone, neck and chest area, pinning her down with his body weight”.

Judge Price singled out that attack as he sentenced the gang, adding: “The hapless victim was terrified.”

Blake later described the incident to police, saying: “I thought she was going to die for a moment, and then he took his foot off her and I saw that she was still breathing.”

On Halloween, G-Block carried out two attacks wearing replica “Scream” masks, the court was told.

Jennifer Grainger was robbed first as she walked home from Balham station, hitting her head on a wall in the struggle with the teenagers. The group ran off after she pulled the mask from one of them.

A college student, Margaret Andrews, was attacked the same evening, being pushed to the ground before she was kicked in the head and face.

She was left with a broken nose, a cut to the back of her head and a footprint-shaped bruise on her face.

The gang leader later told one of his accomplices in a message on internet chat site MSN that he “almost killd da woman 4 nothing”.

On the night of November 10 and the early hours of November 11, the gang carried out five robberies on eight victims in the space of just three hours.

One victim was a schoolgirl who hit on the back of her head, causing wounds that had to be stitched in hospital.

The last incident was on December 22, when Caroline and Alex DeGroote were robbed near Wandsworth Common.

Two members of the gang, including the leader, were arrested that night after the couple identified them to police as they drove around the area. The others were arrested later.

Ms Norton said there were 167 fewer robberies in the area where the robberies took place in the six months following the arrests than in the preceding six months.

Judge Price told the gang: “For the time you were engaged in such behaviour, south west London, in particular Wandsworth, Balham and Tooting, became unsafe for law-abiding citizens to walk the streets without a real danger of being attacked.”

Members have since expressed remorse for their crimes, but the judge added: “At the time, no one showed anything other than callous disregard for them, and indeed showed sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain and injury.”

He said the gang were not solely responsible for the drop in crime since their arrests, but that their arrests could have acted as a deterrent to others.

It was a “tragedy” that they all committed such crimes at a young age, Judge Price said.

He added: “It is impossible to say with accuracy just how many robberies took place, but there were at least 56, and probably substantially more.”

Detective Sergeant Phil Booth of the Metropolitan Police said: “The level of savagery to which their attacks quickly escalated was absolutely shocking and it is extremely lucky they did not have more serious consequences.”

He said some of the victims still suffer from the psychological effect of the attacks, and he hoped the judge’s sentencing would help them recover.