Photographs showing a teenage boy pointing a gun at the camera were found on Shereka Marsh’s phone seven months before he was accused of shooting her dead, a court has been told.
The 15-year-old schoolgirl bled to death from a single bullet wound to the neck just minutes after she turned up at a house in Eastway, Hackney Wick with the boy’s birthday presents, jurors at the Old Bailey heard on Tuesday.
The boy, who turned 15 that day and cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed the 7.65mm pistol fired “unexpectedly” as he showed it to Shereka.
He called 999 at 3.54pm telling the jury “the attackers had gone” – just seven minutes after she got off the 276 bus from Stratford where she bought the gifts.
By the time a doctor arrived by helicopter the Urswick School pupil was not breathing and had no pulse.
The boy, who was wearing gloves, was handcuffed and told officers: ‘She’s been shot. We were both holding it when it went off.’
As he was taken to the police station he banged his head on the cage in the van and said: “Can I say sorry to her mum? It was an accident. Am I going to hell? I didn’t kill her.’
He also repeated that Shereka “died on my birthday”.
The court heard he had kept the gun in an X-Box games console box on a bedroom shelf while his mother was in the Caribbean. He first told police he had found the weapon on Hackney Marsh but later said he was holding it for someone he refused to name.
Asked why the gun fired he insisted he did not touch the trigger at all.
But firearms expert Alice Walters found that the trigger pressure required to fire the gun was normal, at nine pounds, jurors heard.
Ms Walters also hit the gun with a mallet and dropped it on a floor to check that it did not fire without the trigger being pulled, the court heard.
The expert also found that the shot was probably fired from more than one-and-a-half feet away from Miss Marsh’s wrist.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees said: “One possibility for you to consider is whether he was posing with the gun in front of her.”
The boy denies murder, manslaughter and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
He has admitted two offences relating to possessing the gun and ammunition. The trial continues.
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