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Convicts to be deported

(Left to right) Michael Nelson, and Jamaicans Dwight Charlton and Horace Gordon who are all serving sentences in the United Kingdom for attempted murder. - contributed

TWO JAMAICAN MEN, who were implicated in an East London shooting incident which left a toddler wounded, will be deported to the island after they have served their prison sentences.

The two, Dwight Charlton, 26 and Horace Gordon, 34, both of Hackney addresses in the United Kingdom were sentenced to 16 years each. Another man, Michael Nelson, 38, who was the alleged ring leader, was sentenced to 25 years. All three were found guilty of two counts each of attempted murder.

It was alleged that last October, the three men, Charlton, Gordon and Nelson went up to a parked vehicle near Chatsworth Road, Clapton, east London and sprayed it with bullets injuring an 18-month-old baby girl, her father and a friend. A two-year-old girl was unhurt.

The 18-month-old girl, who was shot in the leg, has made a full recovery but the two-year-old is said to be still traumatised.

Good fortune

It was reported by the BBC that at their sentencing, Recorder of London Judge Peter Beaumont said: "For reasons beyond the comprehension of the court, you chose to open fire in a way which was intended to be a cold-blooded execution of the people who were in the car. That you didn't succeed is not due to you. It is due to complete good fortune that these four people survived."

Judge Beaumont also reportedly told Nelson: "You were intending to kill whoever was in that car. The fact that two children survived is no thanks to you.

"The court has only one weapon in the fight against gun crime and that is to pass sentences which anyone reading about this case might pause to reflect on what you did."