Sugar Lounge killings: Murderer in appeal failure

Published: 5:00 PM November 12, 2012 Updated: 9:56 AM October 13, 2020

A gunman who murdered two revellers during a late-night party which turned into a bloodbath has failed to persuade top judges he did not get a fair trial.

Michael Alfonso Smith shot two men dead on May 29, 2010, outside the Sugar Lounge, in Katherine Road, Forest Gate, after a birthday party and was then shot himself by another man, suffering serious injury.

Smith, 28, unemployed, of Beaconsfield Road, Canning Town, was convicted at the Old Bailey in August last year of murdering Eugene Brown, 27, and Patrick Ford, 36, and was sentenced to life in prison for the pair of killings.

Last week he asked Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice McCombe and Mr Justice Stuart-Smith, sitting at the Criminal Appeal Court, for permission to appeal against those convictions.

Pleaded

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Lawyers for Smith, who pleaded self-defence at his trial, told the judges he had not been given a fair chance to persuade the jury of his innocence and that he should have been tried separately from the man who shot him.

But Lord Justice Richards refused his challenge, saying: “The judge took all the necessary precautions to ensure the fairness of the trial and ensure that no defendant – including Smith – was at a disadvantage.”