A teenager who fired a gun during a gang war in Southend had already been convicted over another shooting and let off with a referral order.
The boy, 16, brandished a pistol outside Halifax in Southend High Street on July 30 last year, then fired it at a rival Newham gang as their clash moved to the area outside the Forum library.
Nobody was injured, said prosecutor Gregory Wedge, but the local community was left “terrified”.
CCTV footage captured mothers fleeing a nearby play park with their children.
On the first day of a sentencing hearing at Basildon Crown Court, Mr Wedge told Judge Samantha Cohen that the teen, now 17 – who cannot be named due to his age – had convictions for three prior offences.
They included a firearms incident eight months before the Southend gang war.
On November 13, 2023, police were called to reports of a shooting near Dominos pizza restaurant in Dagenham Heathway.
The teen “was identified as being involved,” said Mr Wedge.
“He was seen holding up the firearm, pointing it towards a group of males and smoke coming out of it.”
He was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon, namely a “disguised firearm”, and possession of ammunition without a certificate.
He received a referral order instead of being incarcerated.
The decision left him free to participate, along with fellow members of the Southside gang in Newham, east London, in a war with rival Northside members in Southend eight months later.
The boy’s faction of Southside, known as ACG, heard Northside members would be attending an unauthorised beach party on July 30 and decided to go there to “mete out violence to rival gang members,” said Mr Wedge.
He is one of several participants in the gang war who were at large despite having convictions for serious prior offences.
Mekai Brown, 19, of Higham Road, Woodford Green, had been caught five months before the Southend clash, in Sussex with a machete down his trousers. He was sentenced to two months in prison.
Michael King, 18, of Crescent Road, Woodford, received a referral order after being caught with a machete in April 2023.
Tyler Omo-Irogho, 19, of Clarendon Road, Watford, had convictions for possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence in May 2023, possessing zombie knives on two occasions in October 2023, and possessing a machete in January 2024.
He was still at large by July 2024.
These four, and six others, are due to be sentenced on Tuesday, July 15.
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