Five men convicted of gunning down shopkeeper: Manchester Crown Court
(M30 - Thursday, 10 February, 2011)

Five men involved in the murder of a shop worker in Salford have been convicted at Manchester Crown Court, Crown Square, today, Thursday, 10 February 2011.

Ryan Manning (born 05/08/1988) of Bird Street, Higher Ince, was convicted of manslaughter.

Mohammed Hafiz (born 09/07/1967) of Woodlands Road, Cheetham Hill, was convicted of murder.

Arfan Rafiq (born 19/12/1984) of Villa Road, Oldham, was convicted of murder.

Akmal Afzal (born 05/11/1985) of Bradford Street, Bolton, was convicted of assisting an offender and possession of a prohibited weapon.

Simeon Henderson (born 9/9/1982) of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to murder.

All are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

In the months leading up to July 2009, tensions between rival groups of criminals in Bolton had been rising and one of the groups enlisted the help of some people from Oldham in dealing with the dispute.

Hafiz was not with Henderson and Manning at the murder but he was instrumental - he organised the weapon, transport and driver to carry out the killing.

Rafiq brought the gun to a meeting between Hafiz, Henderson and Manning shortly before Manning and Henderson set off on the night of the murder.

At 8.48pm on Saturday 4 July 2009, Henderson walked into Brookhouse Wines on Brookhouse Avenue where worker Nasar Shazad (also known as Nasar Hussain), aged 27, was standing behind the counter serving a customer.

Henderson walked up to the side of the counter, just inside the door of the shop and lifted up a large bag, which was concealing a gun.

Within seconds of walking into the shop, Henderson fired a number of shots directly at Nasar.

As well as injuring Nasar, bullets shattered bottles on the shelves behind and lodged in the wall.

Customers and other staff fled the shop in fear.

Nasar fell to the floor and Henderson turned and fled from the shop without saying a word, dropping the bag the gun had been concealed in as he left.

The whole incident was caught on the shop's CCTV system.

Armed officers arrived at the shop shortly after and treated the victim until paramedics arrived.

He was taken to hospital for treatment later died.

A post mortem concluded he died from gunshot wounds to the chest and stomach.

Henderson sped away from the scene in a Mazda Xedos, driven by Manning.

Afzal was waiting nearby in a taxi, Manning dropped Henderson off and Afzal drove Henderson back to Oldham

The Mazda was discovered a few hundred yards from Manning⿿s house shortly before 10pm and had been burned out.

At 6.45am the following morning, a man walking along Hinton Street, Oldham, found a sub machine gun wrapped in tracksuit bottoms.

The gun was forensically linked to Manning and the trousers to Henderson and matched the tracksuit bottoms he was seen wearing in the shop.

Manning was arrested on Friday 11 July 2009 and Henderson was found and arrested by armed officers in Leeds on Thursday 23 July 2009.

Senior Investigating Officer Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Doyle, from Greater Manchester Police's Major Incident Team, said:

"The actions of these men were beyond comprehension.

"This was a planned act of extreme violence, in which Hafiz and Rafiq were instrumental, against a man who was completely innocent with no connections to any of the killers.

"It has taken officers 18 months of painstaking work to unravel the complexities of this conspiracy and it has taken a combination of forensic work, phone records and using the evidence of witnesses we have had to protect.

"I hope it demonstrates that we will work tirelessly to ensure justice is done for the victims of such horrible crimes and take dangerous criminals off the streets.

"This and the fact that the killers will be behind bars for a long time should now be of some comfort to Nasar's devastated family in Pakistan."

INCIDENTS LEADING UP TO THE BROOKHOUSE WINES SHOOTING:

• On 15 December 2008, shots were fired inside a car hire office on Hawksley Street, Oldham, but no one was injured. Henderson admitted carrying out the shooting on the instruction of Hafiz. They drove to the scene of the shooting in convoy.
• On 3 March 2009, a 28-year-old man was shot in the buttock on Bolton Street, Glodwick. Henderson admitted that he fired the shots on the instructions of Hafiz and Rafiq was with him, driving him away from the scene of the shooting.
• Manning admitted in his evidence his involvement in a shooting in Queens Park, Bolton, on 29 June 2009. He said shots were fired as a "show of strength". The incident was not reported to police initially but officers examined the park off the back of intelligence and recovered bullet casings. Examination of those casings revealed that they were from the same gun used in the Brookhouse Wines murder.

Police Force: Greater Manchester

Address:
Brookhouse Wines
Brookhouse Avenue
Eccles
Manchester
Lancashire
M30