Century of jail for Wolverhampton street gun ambush gang

Gunmen hunted down a man and blasted him from behind in a late-night ambush as a coordinated plot spanning the West Midlands ended in decades-long prison terms.

Four men have been jailed for a combined total exceeding a century after being convicted of attempted murder and firearms offences following the shooting of a man in the street in Wolverhampton.

Judge and jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court heard the 45-year-old victim was chased along residential streets before being shot in the back in Horseley Fields at about 11pm on 18 September 2024. He survived the attack, reached hospital for treatment and was later discharged.

Richard Beckles, 44, of Telford; Cleon Johnson, 39, of Walsall; Constantine Campbell, 52, of Tipton; and Khyle Gayle, 31, of Birmingham, were unanimously convicted of attempted murder and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life after a trial. Beckles, Johnson and Gayle were each sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment, while Campbell received 27 years. A fifth defendant, Michael Soledolu, was acquitted of all charges.

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The court heard the victim had parked his grey Mercedes outside a public house in Harp Street earlier that evening, where the vehicle’s tyres were deliberately slashed. As he later left the premises, he was followed by a group of men who pursued him on foot into nearby Minerva Street, where a gunman opened fire, striking him from behind. A black Mercedes then collected the attackers and drove them from the scene.

Prosecutors said the operation had been coordinated in advance. Evidence showed two of the defendants travelled from Birmingham to Wolverhampton before meeting the others on an industrial estate in the Bilston area. Analysis of mobile telephone data demonstrated extensive contact between all four men before and after the shooting, which investigators said established joint participation in the attack.

During sentencing, the judge described the offences as a planned and determined attempt to kill, carried out in a public street using a firearm, placing others at risk of serious harm. The court was told the defendants had sought to evade detection by using different vehicles and rendezvous points, but forensic telecommunications evidence enabled police to reconstruct their movements.

Detective Inspector Francis Nock of the Major Crime Unit said after the hearing: “Although their intended target survived this attack, shots being fired at someone in the street is a terrifying prospect for most people. The offenders tried to cover their tracks by using various vehicles and pick-up points, but we were able to piece together their movements, link their activity and ultimately put together a case which has seen them convicted of attempted murder and rightly jailed for a very significant amount of time.”