Shereka’s killer showed “unparalleled violence of a type not seen before” in school fight

A teenage gangster who shot his friend dead as she came to deliver presents on his 15th birthday has been locked up for nine years.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, blasted Shereka Fab-Ann Marsh, 15, in the neck as he posed with the handgun in his bedroom in Hackney Wick on March 22, and the hard-working Urswick School pupil bled to death.

He had been keeping the weapon – which was used in gangland shooting a month earlier – for a criminal he would not name.

The boy was convicted of manslaughter last month after being cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury.

He has two convictions for attempted robbery in December 2012 and was involved in a “sexually violent incident” and a “very serious fight” at his school, described by a teacher as “unparalleled violence of a type not seen before”.

Sentencing the killer on Monday, Judge Charles Wide QC said he believed the boy was “deeply embedded in gang culture” and had been “intending to frighten” Shereka when he “deliberately pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger”.

He added: “I have watched you carefully in the witness box and you were distressed and expressed remorse at one point, but I also watched you when you gave evidence and you showed a quite remarkable coolness and considerable presence of mind.”

“It was no coincidence that body armour was found in that small bedroom.

“You have previous convictions for two attempted robberies, one of which involved a bladed weapon, probably a screwdriver.

“There were photographs of you holding guns, I’m quite prepared to accept that they were imitation, but also knives.”

An order protecting the boy’s anonymity was not lifted because he is appealing the conviction.