Guyanese killer gets three life sentences

Dec 18, 2010 News

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.. must serve at least 37 years in London jail

A gangster who shot dead a pub landlord’s son and maimed his younger brother after he was ejected from a New Year’s party has been jailed for a minimum of 37 years. Saturday Hassan, 30, opened fire in the Newton Arms pub in Croydon, south London, just minutes after he was kicked out for threatening another customer.
He shot Darren Deslandes, 34, in the head from close range in front of his terrified family and friends.
Darren died instantly after the bullet passed through his brain.
Hassan then gunned down 26-year-old Junior Deslandes as horrified drinkers dived for cover.
Junior was hit by three bullets to the head, neck and shoulder, but miraculously ‘avoided death by millimetres’ because they missed vital organs.
Graphic X-rays of his skull show the three bullets which remain in his head.
He has astounded doctors with his recovery and walked in to court, with the aid of a stick, to give evidence in the trial.
The two brothers had been helping out at the family’s annual New Year’s party and the shooting was witnessed by their younger sibling, who was just 13 at the time. Before fleeing the pub, Hassan also hit the boys’ father Wintworth, 58, over the head with the butt of the gun.
Hassan was found guilty of murder by a majority of ten to two and attempted murder by a majority of 11 to one, after a two-week trial at the Old Bailey.
He was further convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Handing down three life sentences, with a minimum term of 37 years, Judge David Paget QC said Hassan had enjoyed the ‘trappings of a gangster’.
He had access to a semi-automatic, fully loaded pistol and drove a BMW 4×4, despite being banned from driving.
‘You have no convictions but you appear to be someone who at least admires that style of life,’ said the judge.
Darren Deslandes’s fiancee Abigail Beresford, 27, wept as the sentence was announced. There were cries of ‘yes’ from a packed public gallery.
The judge said: ‘What you did has taken the life of a thoroughly good and worthy young man with his life before him and has devastated the lives of the whole Deslandes family, of Darren Deslandes’s fiancee and I dare say of others near and dear to them.
‘It has also left Junior Deslandes with injuries which are likely to be permanent in some respect and will undoubtedly affect him seriously for the rest of his life.’
It emerged that during the trial Junior had reported that Hassan had been ‘eyeballing’ him from the dock and looking at images of a gun in a court file in a bid to intimidate him.
In an impact statement, Miss Beresford described her fiance as ‘one in a million’. The couple had been due to marry in the summer of this year.
Wintworth, a former insurance underwriter who worked in the City for 25 years, was not in the well of the court.
The pub has remained closed since the shooting and Wintworth has vowed not to return to the scene of the shooting.
His wife, Leline, has also given up her role as a foster caregiver for children with special needs.
Prosecutor Ed Brown, Queen’s Counsel, told the court Hassan was ‘angry and seeking revenge’ after being bundled out of the pub by the brothers shortly before 5am on January 1, this year.
He left the pub in Queen’s Road in his BMW X5, but returned minutes later with a loaded handgun and stormed back into the bar.
When he pulled out the weapon, the two brothers bravely tried to wrestle it from him and force him back outside.
Mr Brown said: ‘Darren Deslandes was in the bar and attempted to walk the defendant to the front door, to get him out of the pub again.
‘Junior, who had been in the garden, joined Darren and was now beside his brother.
‘Junior then stepped in front of his brother and tried to grab the defendant. The defendant was again bundled out towards the door, into a small area by the front door.’
But as Junior Deslandes did so, the defendant, with the gun in his right hand, put his left arm around Junior’s neck.
‘As Darren approached, perhaps to help his brother, the defendant made the decision to fire at those two young men – one nearby, Darren, and one actually in his grasp, Junior.’
‘He fired the gun, shooting each brother in the head and indeed to other parts of their upper bodies. Each brother collapsed on the ground injured, one fatally and one critically, lying side by side on the floor of the public house.’
Hassan fired at least eight shots at the two men.
As Hassan tried to escape out of a side door he was confronted by Wintworth Deslandes and again levelled the gun at his target and pulled the trigger three times.
The gun clicked, but did not fire. Hassan instead lashed out with the weapon and fled the scene.
Darren, who was educated at Dulwich College, Richmond College and Brunel University and worked for the Amicus Horizon housing association, was shot three times.He suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head, as well as wounds to his right and left arm.
Junior was shot least three times and still has three bullets in his body.
He told the court: ‘He managed to shoot me in the top of the head. He had his arm around me. He managed to point down and shoot me.
‘I staggered back a bit. He carried on shooting. I remember getting hit in the shoulder and the neck.
‘I just remember as I was lying there struggling, seeing my brother not moving.’
Darren’s father had run the pub with his wife Leline since 1999.
Darren’s fiancee was upstairs on the phone to police when the fatal shots rang out. She told the
operator: ‘Six gunshots in the pub. A man’s just come in and shot a gun like six or seven times.
‘This man I think he must have shot six or seven times, I just heard bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.’
Hassan was arrested by armed police at a girlfriend’s house on January 7 this year.
He had previously dumped the gun, which has never been found. In interviews he admitted being in the pub and being forcibly ejected. He then blamed one of the Deslandes brothers for having the gun and said any injuries which occurred were accidental and the result of a struggle as he tried to fend off an attack.
He was then shown CCTV footage which showed he was armed and was forced to admit he had taken the gun to ‘frighten’ them.
Mitigating, Graham Trembath QC said the incident was ‘minutes of utter madness’.
Hassan, of Sydenham Hill, south London, denied murder and two counts of attempted murder.
He was further convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.

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