Adrian Marriott

Adrian Marriott was found shot dead in a park near Barrington Road at around 9am on 9 June 2004.

He had been shot five times in the head at close range.

Three people were tried for his murder but acquitted.

At the trial it was heard that the men had attempted to convert Adrian Marriott to Islam but that when he had fallen out with them they had conspired to kill him.

When he was first found dead it was thought that his murder had been in revenge for the shooting of a man the previous evening nearby. The man had survived and had been taken to hospital where he was placed under an armed police guard.

After Adrian Marriott was murdered about 150 of his friends and relatives took to the streets demanding revenge and riot police were called out to calm them down.

At the trial, it was heard that Adrian Marriott had been accosted by one of the men that had tried to convert him to Islam and had £500 demanded from him at gun point and that in response, a few days later on 8 June 2004, Adrian Marriott and another man had accosted one of the other men tried for his murder at Loughborough Junction train station. It was said that from that moment onwards the three men, and possibly others had conspired to kill Adrian Marriott who was found dead the next morning.

The trial heard that the men had targeted Adrian Marriott as well as his sister and her friend for conversion to Islam and that they had succeeded in converting his sister and her friend who they had later provided with hijabs but Adrian Marriott had rejected them.

At his inquest, his mother said that Adrian Marriott had told her that he had been told on the Sunday prior to his death that he would be killed if he did not become a Muslim by the Wednesday, which was the day he died. The Coroner asked his mother whether he had believed the threat and she had said that she didn't think so.

The three men that had been tried were said to have been in a gang known as the Muslim Boys.

Adrian Marriott was from Angel Town estate in Brixton. He was both an accountancy student and a gang member.