3 Jailed for Life in Home-Side Homicide as Judge Doubts London Gang War Has Ended

FW Pomeroy's statue of Justice stands atop the Central Criminal Court building, Old Bailey, London on Jan. 8, 2019. PA Media

Three men who launched a gang attack on rivals in north-west London have been jailed for life for the murder of their friend who was shot dead by the other side.

Last month Issa Seed and Adel Yussuf, both 25, and Daniel Mensah, 30, were convicted of the murder of their friend, Billy “The Kid” McCullagh.

Sentencing the trio on Thursday, Judge Philip Katz said McCullagh had been “memorialised” in a YouTube video which was a “brazen and provocative celebration of his gang lifestyle.”

He said: “The police perceived that video as a threat and tried to have it taken down—without success.”

‘Little Confidence’ War Has Ended

The McCullagh trial heard the Harrow Road Boys and their allies had been involved in gang warfare with the Stonebridge Thugs since before 2018 and there had been at least three murders.

Katz warned on Thursday: “There can be little confidence that this war has ended.”

The trio were prosecuted under the legal principle of “transferred malice”—which is usually applied to innocent passers-by being killed during an attack—and this is the first time it has been used to convict accomplices of someone who was killed when the targets fired back.

The Old Bailey heard Seed, Yussuf, Mensah, and McCullagh were members of the Harrow Road Boys gang who mounted an attack on a street gathering of their rivals, the Thugs of Stonebridge, on an estate in Harlesden.

Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow, KC, said the attack ended in “crushing defeat” for the Harrow Road Boys side and McCullagh was shot twice in the back.

Undated photo of Billy McCullagh, who was shot dead in Wembley, north west London, in the early hours of July 16, 2020. Metropolitan Police/PA

The Metropolitan Police has pledged to find the gunmen who killed McCullagh.

The trial heard the Harrow Road Boys launched a “surprise attack” on the Stonebridge gang in revenge after 18-year-old Ahmed Yasin-Ali, was stabbed to death.

Transferred Malice

The three-month trial is believed to be the first of its kind in England and Wales.

Transferred malice is an accepted legal concept in England and Wales, but it is usually used to prosecute those who kill third parties during an attack on an intended target.

In 2005 four men were convicted of the murder of Letisha Shakespeare, 17, and Charlene Ellis, 18, in a drive-by shooting in Birmingham. The killers, members of the notorious Burger Bar Boys gang, were shooting at rivals from the Johnson Crew who were standing close to Letisha and Charlene at a party in a hair salon in January 2003.

Care assistant Magda Pniewska was killed in crossfire as she walked across a car park in New Cross, southeast London in October 2007. Armel Gnango, 18, was jailed for life for her murder even though the bullet that killed her was fired by his adversary, who was never caught.

PA Media contributed to this content.