Oliver Tetlow

Oliver Tetlow was shot in a drive-by shooting in what was thought to have been a case of mistaken identity.

A gunman opened fire in Church Road at the junction with Conley Road in Harlesden shortly before 10pm on 9 March 2016 with a machine gun. The gunman was said to have arrived in a black Ford Kuga hatchback car with blacked-out windows, jumped out, fired a spray of bullets at Oliver Tetlow, and to have then jumped back into the car and to have then been driven away at speed along Church Road towards Harlesden town centre. It was noted that a white Mercedes was also said to have been involved in the murder.

A builder who lived nearby said that he heard six shots fired. He said, 'I was relaxing watching TV when I heard about six shots like a machine gun. I went outside and saw people running towards him. He'd been shot in the chest and stomach but was still breathing. One man was trying to help and feeling his pulse. It was all so quick but he didn't make it'.

A man that had been in a nearby off licence at the time said, 'I was in the Cash and Carry and I heard a shot and came outside and at least another two shots went off really rapidly. It sounded like a machine gun. They shot him from point-blank range. They were going slowly at the time and then sped off down the street. The car had tinted windows so you couldn’t see inside. Two men ran after the car to try and get the number plate but it was too fast. There was a man who stopped to help the man on the ground. He was doing CPR and trying to keep him alive but I don’t think there was anything he could have done to save him. His chest was covered in blood and I saw the wounds'.

Oliver Tetlow died at the scene. He had been wearing black trousers with a white stripe down the side and training shoes.

It was reported that one resident in Church Road said that her son had been warned not to go out on the street that night as 'something would be going down'.

Four people were charged with his murder but acquitted. A fifth man who was said to have been involved was said to have fled after the murder and to be on the run in Bermuda.

Neither the gun or the car were discovered.

However, the police said that they were able to link the black Ford Kuga and white Mercedes cars, and the accused men to the scene by CCTV footage, number plate recognition and mobile phone tracking.

It was said that Oliver Tetlow had been an innocent bystander and that the shooting had related to a row between two rival rappers after a video made by someone in the Church Road Soldiers gang was uploaded to the YouTube website mocking a rapper.

The video was said to have taunted a rapper over some jewellery of his that he had lost after a night out at the Tape London nightclub in Hanover Square in Mayfair, London on 8 March 2016. It was said that members of the Church Road Soldiers gang had robbed him of his jewellery outside the club and had then created the video bragging about it the following day, which included images of them with his jewellery. They were also said to have used the Instagram digital communications service to post messages bragging about it. The jewellery was described as bling and included multiple watches that he had been wearing as part of his rapper persona.

It was said that after the video was uploaded to YouTube that the rapper who was ridiculed in it had recruited two other men to attack members of the Church Road Soldiers gang in a revenge attack. However, at the trial the two men who were said to have carried out the shooting were acquitted after a witness gave them an alibi. The rapper and another man were then later acquitted because of insufficient evidence.

The court had heard that it had been impossible to say which of the four men tried had pulled the trigger, but had claimed that they had all worked together in a joint enterprise and had each intended to cause death or seriously injure someone.

The police said that they thought that the murder weapon had been a Skorpion machine gun and that it had been brought down from Manchester for use in the attack and then taken back to Manchester on the night of the murder. The police noted that the weapon was worth between £4,000 and £5,000 on the black market and that criminals were generally reluctant to dispose of them. However, they said that they were unable to determine the exact type of weapon used. It was also suggested that the murder weapon had been an Uzi style machine-gun.

The police said, 'In the days after the murder the firearm used to kill Oliver would have no doubt been passed on to someone to hide or to keep safe and there is a possibility that this gun has exchanged hands since. It is of paramount importance first and foremost that this weapon is taken off the streets and secondly I would like to appeal to anyone who knows who the gun was handed to or knows where it is now to come forward and speak to us'.

Oliver Tetlow was homeless at the time and had been living with a friend.