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Published: 24 June 2010
by ANGELA COBBINAH

THE strain is still etched on his face as George Shire talks about the two-year ordeal his family have just been through. It began with the arrest of three young men for the alleged murder of Sharma’arke Hassan in May 2008 and ended last week with their acquittal at the Old Bailey. 

Chen Shire, 23, from Kentish Town, Didi Parkes, 25, from Willesden, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named because of his age were set free by a unanimous jury verdict following a two-month trial.

But as family members rushed out of the dingy corridors of the Old Bailey to be reunited at last with their loved ones, their joy was mixed with anger that a case which the prosecution accepted had “no direct evidence” linking the accused with the crime should have ever reached the courts. 

“It has been like a tsunami sweeping through our lives,” says George, speaking on behalf of the extended Shire family. “Once it started there was no stopping its devastation.

“The police investigation was bungled from the start – they made up their minds that our boys were criminals and tried to shoehorn their evidence to fit their theory. But it was nothing more than speculation.”

The family survived, he said, by drawing more closely together. Among those who joined them each day at the trial were diplomats from the Zimbabwe and South Africa high commissions, a reflection of the fact that an earlier generation of Shires were prominent members of the southern Africa liberation movement.

“We are grateful for their support and that of other friends,” says George, who came to Britain from Zimbabwe in the 1970s. “If there was a whiff of doubt in their minds they would not have turned up.” 

The police claimed that the youngest of the accused, who was 15 at the time, had recruited the other two accused to carry out the shooting in Gilbey’s Yard, Camden Town, after he had been beaten up and robbed of £10 earlier that day. 

None had ever been involved in violent crime or gangs but the court was told that they were cold-blooded killers caught up in a feud with the notorious TMS gang, of which Sharma’arke was believed to be a member. The Shires could only shake their heads in disbelief as Crispin Aylett, for the prosecution, told the jury: “This shooting has all the hallmarks of a carefully executed hit.” 

“The idea that a 15-year-old boy could organise such an assassination is bizarre,” says George, a university lecturer in cultural studies. “He was just an ordinary teenager, doing well at school and anxious to get good GSCEs, which he had started studying for. He was also a popular volunteer at a youth club. Common sense would have told you he just didn’t fit the profile.” 

Similarly, Didi Parkes was a DJ for youth music charity Bigga Fish, while Chen Shire was planning on going back to college following work with Marks and Spencer. 

After the three were arrested, groups of 20 armed police raided their family homes simultaneously in the middle of the night. “It was extremely frightening for them. In one case the police threatened to shoot the dog because it kept barking,” says George. Meanwhile, the juvenile’s family were advised by police to move out of Camden for their own safety. They had lived in the borough for more than 30 years and had to flee overnight following threats by persons unknown.

The next blow came when the youngsters were remanded in custody following their committal hearing in May last year. “We were absolutely gobsmacked,” recalls George. “The boys had already gone through hell – we didn’t think it could get any worse.” 

He explains that  police opposed bail because they had “compelling” CCTV and phone evidence – the same evidence that failed to convince the jury of the youngsters’ guilt. One piece of CCTV footage, described as crucial during the trial, was lost when the disk became “corrupted”, another went “missing”, while an expert witness told the court that mobile phone call analysis could not pinpoint the defendants’ exact locations without corroborative evidence. 

The older accused ended up in Belmarsh, the maximum security prison in south-east London where many of Britain’s most serious offenders are locked up. The youngest accused was sent to Feltham Young Offenders’ Institute, where his misery was compounded by a TB infection picked up behind bars. He was taken to hospital on four occasions and is still receiving treatment. 

Despite their ordeal, the three were composed as they sat through the trial in court number 16, listening intently to the proceedings and betraying no emotion as the prosecution attempted to brand them ruthless criminal masterminds. “They were extremely confident they would be acquitted – they knew they were innocent,” remarks George.

Revealing that another member of the Shire family had been under investigation during the early stage of police inquiries, he is particularly scathing of Operation Trident, the Metropolitan Police unit set up to reduce black gun crime, which led the murder probe. 

“What was ‘black’ about this crime other than that the victim was black?” he asks scornfully. Despite being established to act as a bridge into the black community, Trident “came with its own stereotypes”, he believes. As a result, “it has been putting more black boys in prison than those going into higher education”.     

One of the problems, he believes, is that Trident is under pressure to “produce results” amid the moral panic surrounding a surge in teenage murders in recent years. At the time of his death in May 2008, 17-year-old Sharma’arke, of Agar Grove, Camden Town, was the 15th youngster to die violently in London. 

He was gunned down just a day after the non-fatal shooting of a youngster in Archway. Two months earlier he had been stabbed on Hampstead Heath after a confrontation with a group of youths.   

It is understood the violence was connected with a drugs turf war being waged between rival gangs, with Gilbey’s Yard near the Regent’s Canal and Morrison’s supermarket in Chalk Farm being a well-known hang-out for cannabis dealers. Another was Inverness Street market in Camden Town and a bus stop around the corner from it on Camden High Street, where 18-year-old Mahir Osman was stabbed to death by a mob in an unprovoked attack in 2006. 

“There are multiple theories as to who could have murdered Sharma’arke but Trident never pursued them,” says George. “Trident clearly needs to improve its intelligence but it can only do this by gaining the trust of the community, something it has squandered with cases like ours.”

He and the rest of the family are now anxious that the three young men can get on with the rest of their lives. “For two years they have faced the prospect of spending the next 20 years in prison for something they did not do. We all hope that they can be left alone to rebuild their lives in peace.” 

He adds: “Nobody needs to be treated in the way we have by a system meant to protect us. Four families have suffered a serious injustice, and in this I include Sharma’arke’s, who police led to believe that they had found their son’s killers. To be told that this is not so is like losing their son all over again.” 

Detectives defend their use of Trident team in ‘thorough’ investigation

by TOM FOOT

THE mystery of who shot Sharma’arke Hassan is unlikely to be solved after detectives admitted this week they had “exhausted all lines of inquiry”.

But they hit back at accusations that they had “bungled” the case and insisted that “all the evidence had been thoroughly investigated”.

The families of the three accused cleared at the Old Bailey last week asked why, given that the prosecution admitted there was “no direct evidence”, the accused were held on remand in prison for more than a year. Responding to questions from the New Journal, investigating officers insisted: “The murder of Sharma’arke Hassan has been thoroughly investigated and all the evidence fully explored. 

“This evidence was put to the Crown Prosecution Service, which agreed the charges in relation to the defendants. The trial judge agreed that the evidence should be put to a jury. All lines of inquiry have been exhausted at this time. If there is any new evidence it will be investigated.”

The decision to hold the three defendants on remand was taken by a judge and not the police.

The police spokeswoman said the Hassan family – who sat through the eight-week hearing – had nothing but praise for the police investigation, adding: “The family liaison officer has been present with them throughout and kept them informed of all aspects of the inquiry.”

Responding to questions about why the investigation was passed to Operation Trident – investigating black-on-black gun crime since 1998 – the spokeswoman said: “Officers from Trident have a wealth of experience in investigating murders. Initial reports following the murder – the victim, a black male, had been shot and witnesses saw black males running from the scene – meant that the murder was assigned to a Trident investigation team. 

“When a murder investigation is taking place, all lines of inquiry are explored, irrespective of the colour of the suspects.”