Mother and son shot with gun also used in Wigan car wash shooting, court told

Christian Hickey and his mother Jayne were blasted in the legs by a gunman with a handgun which had been used in another gang shooting in Wigan six months earlier, on a man named Jamie Rothwell, Manchester Crown Court heard.

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The intended target was the youngster's father, Christian or Chris Hickey senior, husband to Jayne, who lived in Winton, Salford, at the time of the shooting on October 12 2015, the jury was told.

Prosecutor Paul Greaney QC, opening the case at the start of the trial of eight men, told the jury: "Both mother and son had been shot in the legs, causing serious injuries, and both required extensive hospital treatment, but survived.

"The prosecution case is that what happened that night was a plan to kill, in all probability Chris Hickey was the target, but something went wrong."

Mr Hickey is a friend of Salford gang leader Michael Carroll, the jury heard, who was trading violent attacks with another gang, the A-Team, led by a man named Stephen Britton.

Shortly before 9.25pm on October 12, Chris Hickey was at home with his wife and son, Mr Greaney told the jury.

He continued: "There was a knock at the window. Jayne Hickey went to the door and opened it. Her son was behind her.

"A man was there, down the drive. He shouted, 'Is your husband in?' Jayne Hickey replied, 'One sec', at which she heard the man say something like, 'nah nah'.

"A second man then appeared. He was armed with a gun; indeed, he was armed with the same Heckler & Koch self-loading pistol that had been used to shoot Jamie Rothwell. The second man started shooting. Jayne Hickey slammed the door.

"Looking around, she saw that Christian had been shot. Then she realised that she too had been injured."

Mrs Hickey later identified the man she spoke to as Carne Thomasson, an established member of the A-Team gang who was arrested with Mr Britton and others with a loaded handgun in Spain in February 2016.

Thomasson, 28, Christopher Hall, 49, Aldaire Warmington, 32, and John Thomasson, 49, all deny conspiracy to murder and perverting the course of justice.

James Coward, 22, Dominic Walton, 26, and Lincoln Warmington, 32, deny perverting the course of justice in relation to the disposal of an Audi car after the Hickey shooting.

Jacob Harrison, 26, has admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm to Mr Rothwell after he was shot and injured at a car wash near Wigan on March 30 2015.

John Kent, 54, denies the same charge and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice for the Rothwell shooting.

The defendants, each flanked by a prison officer, sat in the dock watching from behind reinforced glass as the prosecution opened the case before adjourning for the lunch break.

The court heard that between February 2015 and the Hickeys' shooting, a linked series of violent incidents occurred in the North West, centred on Salford.

A number of men were attacked and shot or stabbed and, on one occasion, a hand grenade was thrown at the window of an occupied family home.

Mr Greaney said these were planned attacks carried out by members of the two competing gangs, both operating in Salford, headed by Carroll and Britton, who had been friends until a violent dispute developed.

All the defendants were involved in at least one of the two attacks, carried out by the A-Team on their rivals, it is alleged.

The first attack the jury heard about was at a car wash in Ashton-in-Makerfield.

Mr Rothwell, a close associate and member of Carroll's gang, was stalked by a van and a car used for surveillance by the A-Team, the court heard.

The driver of the van was John Kent, it is alleged, and the second vehicle, a stolen white Seat Ibiza with false plates, contained two men - the driver and a front seat passenger with a Heckler & Koch pistol.

One of those two men, the prosecution alleges, was Harrison, an established member of the A-Team who was probably the driver.

They were waiting for Kent to tell them Rothwell was at the car wash and the attack was on, the court heard.

That news arrived shortly before 5.15pm, the jury was told, and the car was driven to the area opposite the car wash.

The passenger got out of the car momentarily, leaned across its roof and fired a number of rounds at Rothwell, hitting him in the abdomen and arm, injuring but not killing him.

The car sped away with the Peugeot van to a nearby location, where the Seat was abandoned and the driver and gunman escaped in Kent's van.

Kent allegedly sought a false alibi for himself and faces a second charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.