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Wesley Blake

Age: 27

Sex: male

Date: 18 May 2009

Place: St Saviours Road, Broad Green, Croydon

Wesley Blake was shot as he sat in his car in St Saviour's Road in Broad Green, Croydon.

Two men were tried for his murder but acquitted.

He had been shot just before 7.30pm. The spot on St Saviour's Road had been a meeting point for him and his friends and there was a crowd of people around the car.

Wesley Blake was unemployed and had converted to Islam. He also had a long criminal record and had spent years in and out of prison.

Although a crowd of people witnessed the shooting, at least four of them refused to help the police. The police said that they had faced a wall of silence during the investigation.

After he was shot Wesley Blake stumbled out of his car and ran off down the street but soon collapsed in the front garden of a house. He was taken to Mayday Hospital but was dead within 45 minutes.

At the trial witnesses said that they had seen a man walk up to his car with a gun hidden in his jacket, load it, and shoot Wesley Blake in the chest at point blank range after which the gunman had walked off, flexing his muscles and roaring like the Incredible Hulk.

The court heard that in the moments leading up to his murder Wesley Blake had been arguing with one or more people that had been standing around his car although it was not known what the argument was about.

A witness said that after the man had shot Wesley Blake he had tried to shoot him another time but the gun had jammed.

Witnesses said that after the man had shot Wesley Blake he had sauntered off with three other men and had got into a taxi.

One of the men that was tried said that he had not been at the scene and that he had been with a friend to a recording studio to make music.

Another person that had been at the scene said that the gunman was an unidentified man that had been seen by a wall who had recently been released from prison. The witness said that the man was only known as 'Hitman' because of his work in the recording industry.

At the trial the man known as Hitman, who was allegedly identified, and was one of the men on trial, was said to have been the man that had passed the weapon to the man that had shot Wesley Blake.

One of the witnesses that gave evidence said that when he realised what was happening he had said, 'You can’t shoot him, he is a Muslim brother, we’re all Muslim and this ain’t happening.' He said that the man barged past him and another man, walked up to the driver’s side window, loaded the gun, and shot Mr Blake.

Another man that had been there said that he had tried to stop the murder and had placed himself between Wesley Blake and the gunman saying, 'No, no, no' but was pushed aside. He said that the man then shot Wesley Blake at point blank range. He said 'He cocked the gun back and shot him'. When the man described the gunman's roar after the shooting he said 'The best way I can describe it is he was like the Incredible Hulk. It was like an adrenalin rush, he just roared. It just went silent because there was a loud bang. Everyone was frozen'.


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