Phil Bradley KC and Sarah Slater, instructed by Samantha Dixon of the Serious Violence, Organised Crime and Exploitation Unit, prosecuted 46-year-old Aaron Nubie and 28-year-old Kimani Durrell-Smith at Birmingham Crown Court, after both men engaged in a shoot-out with each other in the early hours of Sunday 23rd March this year. The second defendant, Durrell-Smith, was represented by Tom Schofield KC.
Neither man appeared to know the other, but both visited a club called the FJ Lounge on Bickford Road in Aston late on Saturday evening and into Sunday morning. Significantly, a man called Garth Pantry had a stall outside the club from which he sold fish and chicken to partygoers.
Internal CCTV captured two minor disputes between Nubie and Durrell-Smith inside the club. Shortly after the second incident (which involved little more than pushing), Aaron Nubie left the club, returning a few minutes later. The prosecution case was that his purpose for doing so was to collect his firearm. Unbeknown to Nubie, Durrell-Smith was already armed.
When Nubie returned to the club, he went inside and watched Durell-Smith and his friends. When they left a few minutes later, he followed. Durrell-Smith then went to Garth Pantry’s food store. Within minutes, Nubie confronted him there. Both men immediately produced their firearms and began shooting towards each other.
Nubie sustained a gunshot wound to his hand, with collateral damage to his neck and jaw line. Durrell-Smith was shot in the shoulder. The food seller, Garth Pantry, was caught in the crossfire, sustaining a ‘through and through’ gunshot wound to his shoulder from a bullet fired by Nubie.
In addition to being tried for attempting to kill each other (there were alternative charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent), both men were jointly charged with the attempted murder and the same alternative charge to reflect the injuries sustained by Mr Pantry. The charges relating to Mr Pantry were rooted in the legal concept of ‘transferred malice’, which ensures that willing parties to crime are criminally liable even where their victim was not an intended target.
After shortly under a day’s deliberation, the jury found both men guilty of wounding each other with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. They were both also convicted of the same offence in relation to Garth Pantry.
Each had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to unlawfully possessing firearms. They will both be sentenced by the Recorder of Birmingham, Andrew Smith KC, in January next year.
