🔴 GANG RIDE-OUT MURDER TRIAL: TEEN GIRL SHOT DEAD OVER ‘SLIGHT’
A man took fatal revenge in a gang drive-by shooting after his close friend suffered a public humiliation in a late-night beating, the Old Bailey heard on Wednesday as a long-delayed murder trial finally opened.
Michael Clarke, 36, born 12 October 1989, of no fixed address but formerly of Wood Green, north London, denies murdering 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne-Blake and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Prosecutors allege Clarke was one of the occupants of a vehicle that carried out a retaliatory “ride-out” from Wood Green into the heart of rival Northumberland Park territory on the evening of 2 April 2018.
Tanesha, who was simply socialising with friends on a Tottenham estate, was struck once in the chest by a bullet from a Czechoslovakian-made self-loading pistol fired from the moving car in Chalgrove Road shortly after 9.35pm.
She collapsed and died at the scene despite the efforts of paramedics.
Opening the case, Jocelyn Ledward KC told jurors the shooting was triggered by a specific incident less than 48 hours earlier.
In the early hours of 1 April 2018, Marcus La Croix – also known as Bobby Slater – and his girlfriend had been eating at the Tinsel Town diner in Farringdon when they were followed outside by four men linked to the Northumberland Park Killers (NPK).
What followed was a sustained and entirely unprovoked assault on La Croix involving repeated punches and kicks while his girlfriend tried in vain to shield him.
One attacker seized La Croix’s phone and filmed the beating; the footage was soon circulating widely on social media, the court heard.
Ms Ledward said Clarke, a close associate of La Croix with strong ties to the Wood Green Mob (WGM), reacted immediately to this public “slight”.
The prosecution case is that Clarke was prepared to act first and most decisively when his friend was attacked or humiliated – and that he did precisely that by joining the armed expedition into enemy territory the following evening.
Jurors were told longstanding territorial enmity existed between the NPK – who wore purple and also used the name Sin Squad – and the green-associated WGM, whose areas bordered each other in north London.
Between 2016 and 2020 the feud produced a series of tit-for-tat stabbings and shootings, some fatal.
Prosecutors say the fatal attack on Tanesha was not merely another episode in that cycle but had its own direct catalyst in the Farringdon assault on La Croix.
Clarke is alleged to have been inside the silver Vauxhall Meriva people carrier from which three shots were fired in Chalgrove Road.
The vehicle was later found burnt out in Barnet five days after the killing.
Marcus La Croix, 36, born 30 June 1989, of Frampton Park Road, Hackney, was originally jointly charged with the same offences but is not currently before the court.
Clarke, who appeared in the dock wearing a grey jumper, listened intently through the opening and asserts he was not in the ride-out vehicle at all.
The trial, before Mr Justice Sweeney, continues.
