Shooting Duo Jailed

16 April 2013, 12:13 | Updated: 16 April 2013, 12:31

A man who organised a shooting of a Watford dad, which nearly killed him, has been jailed for 35 years.

Fesar Khiaq, (pictured on the left) 27, put together the plan to exact revenge on Watford father Mohammed Yasin Khan, for an attack on his older brother.

Another man, James Campbell, 23, from Luton, (pictured on the right) was sentenced to 29 years for his part in the shooting.

Before sentence was passed on Monday 15 April 2013, Judge Steven Gullick was told of the terrible, life changing injuries Mr Khan, now 66 had suffered.
 
In the shooting at his home in West Watford in the early hours of 27 October 2011, he had been left with a wound the size of a 50 pence piece to his neck, but pellets from the blast entered his brain and he suffered a stroke.

As a result he had been left paralysed down his left side, his speech has been affected and he is unable to walk.
 
From being an active man who would visit his mosque and walk his dog, he now has to be lifted in and out of bed and is doubly incontinent, needing round the clock care from his family.
 
Passing sentence on Khiaq at St Albans Crown Court, the judge told him his actions "represented a calculated act of revenge."
 
Khiaq, a father of a young child, had ordered the shooting of Mr Khan at his home in Hodges Way because his son,  Ausman, had been acquitted at St Albans crown court just days earlier of a charge of attempting to murder Khiaq's older brother, Abid Hussain.
 
James Campbell, 23, of Wellington Street, Luton, was jailed for 29 years on Monday 15 April 2013.
 
He had accompanied a second man who was armed with the weapon used to shoot Mr Khan after they broke into his home.
 
Khiaq of Yarmouth Road, Watford and Campbell, appeared for sentence today after a jury found them guilty on Friday of conspiring to murder.
 
Three other men, Anthony Francis, 30, who at the time was living in Charter Place, Watford, Matthew Seddon, 28, also of Charter Place, Watford, and Alex Myers, 21, of Dumfries Street in Luton were all found not guilty of conspiracy to murder.
 
Khiaq was also acquitted of two charges of making threats to kill.
 
During the trial of the five men, the prosecution's case was that the shooting of Mr Khan snr was the culmination of a bitter feud between his family and Mr Khiaq's.
 
Events had begun in January of 2011 when Khiaq's older brother, Abid Hussain and Mr Khan's son Ausman had clashed late at night in the centre of Watford.
 
Police moved the pair on, but two hours later Khiaq's brother was attacked by four men at a flat in Tolpits Lane, Watford that he had gone to.
 
Abid suffered serious injuries in the attack in which he was struck with a baseball bat and knuckle dusters and knives were also used. He suffered a fractured skull and Ausman Khan was eventually arrested and charged with attempted murder.
 
On October 21 that year he was acquitted by a jury of the charge and set free.
 
His evidence had been he was home at the time of the attack on Abid Hussain and his father gave evidence in support of his son.
 
Following the acquittal, Fesar Khiaq was determined to seek revenge and put together a plan for an armed attack on the Khan family home.
 
He was careful to distance himself from the events so as to have an alibi. In the hours leading up to the shooting he made sure he was seen on CCTV in bars and and a strip club in Watford town centre.
 
Shortly before 1am in the early hours of  October 27, Campbell and another man arrived at the Khan family home.
 
Ausman Khan was out that night but his father, Mohammed, was in bed and his sister, Rabia, was in her bedroom.
 
She was woken by loud banging as if someone was trying to break down the front door.
 
That was followed by the sound of footsteps running up the stairs and on the landing. The sister thought it sounded like two people, he said.
 
Someone tried to force open her door, but it was locked and the next thing she heard was a number of loud bangs followed by the sound of people running back down the stairs.
 
She made a 999 call but could not leave her room because one of the intruders had damaged the door and it would not open. Police arrived to find her father in his bedroom.
 
"Mohammed Yasin Khan was in his bedroom, shot and left for dead," said Mr Nicholas Dean QC prosecuting. He said the father had been shot through his door and the blast had left a wound to the left side of his neck. There was also an injury to his left shoulder. Shotgun pellets were embedded in the wound as well as a bedroom wall.
 
One neighbour, who had been woken by the commotion, saw three people running from the property into nearby Jellicoe Road. They said one had been carrying a gun.
 
The jury heard a firearms expert who examined the scene of the shooting concluded that the father had got out of bed and had gone to his bedroom door and as he tried to close it, had been shot through the door.
 
"The shooter had aimed for his head and chest and quite deliberately tried to kill Mr Khan," said Mr Dean.
 
Sentencing Khiaq, Judge Gullick told him the background to the case lay in the fact that Mr Khan's son had been acquitted of attempting to murder his brother.
 
"You decided a considerable act of revenge was needed" and the judge said he decided someone was going to be killed at the Khan home.
 
The judge went on "You organised this conspiracy to murder and it was carried out on your behalf and at your instigation."
 
But the judge noted Khiaq had been careful to stay "well away" from the house on the night of the shooting.
 
The judge said Mr Khan had spent 12 months in hospital and he and his family had been forced to move to a secret address for fear of another attack.
 
The judge said the sentences had to demonstrate to those thinking about taking the law into their own hands, that lengthy jail terms would follow.