Junaid killed after enemies ‘joined forces’ claim

Junaid Khan

Victim’s girlfriend describes moments before shooting

SHOOTING victim Junaid Kahn’s childhood sweetheart told a court of his final moments.

The 21-year-old shop worker, of Cotton Mill Crescent, Oldham, was shot dead in Block Lane, Chadderton, after leaving his girlfriend Tammy Williams’s side.

The prosecution at a Manchester Crown Court trial claim he was gunned down after a number of his enemies joined forces.

Milad Finn (23), of Lauriston Close, Wythenshawe, is said to have blamed Junaid for the robbery of a cannabis farm, while brothers Kashif Khan (26) and Liaquat Khan (29), of Worcester Street, Oldham, are alleged to have been “embroiled in a long-running feud” with him.

They deny murder, alongside 28-year-old Naveed Shabir, of Coppice Street, Oldham.

Miss Williams, who had been dating Junaid on and off since they were 12, described how on the night of the killing they spent two hours together “having a laugh” and that he was in a “happy mood” as they parted.

The gunman opened fire as Junaid headed to his car, parked in a doctor’s surgery car park in Block Lane. At that moment Miss Williams had just gone into a near-by house, where she and her toddler son were staying with her friend, Sarah Coupe.

She told the court that normally she would watch Junaid get back in his car and drive off.

She said: “For some reason that night I didn’t. I just said ‘make sure you text me when you get home’. I closed the door — then I heard gunshots.

“It was like lots just going off at the same time. I heard Junaid saying ‘Aargh’. I just said to Sarah: ‘He’s been shot at’.

“I got my son off the settee and I rang the police. I ran upstairs and put my son under the bed because I thought they were going to come and get us all. As I was still walking upstairs I heard more gunshots.”

The court heard a frantic Miss Williams later ran outside, saw Mr Khan lying in a pool of blood and retrieved his phone from the ground before calling one of his friends to the scene.

The jury was told that Miss Williams told police that Junaid Khan and a “violent” man she had dated “hated” each other.

She said that this man texted her after Junaid died asking if she was all right.

At the time she suspected he might have had a role to play in the shooting, but no longer believed that.

She said of the love rival: “He’s not got that in him.”

The court heard that at the time of his death, Junaid had a mark on his face after a fight with some “Glodwick boys”, who did not get on with people from Werneth.

Asked by defence QC Stuart Denney if it would be fair to call him a fighter, Miss Williams said he was a man who knew how to stand up for himself and his friends and family.

She added that he claimed to have been shot in the past, but said that she didn’t really listen to stories like that and had not seen a gunshot wound.

Sarah Coupe told the court that just before the shooting from the house at Block Lane she heard an Asian male shouting ‘How’s this for you, homeboy?’ and then ‘a lot of shots’.

In a statement read to the jury, Paul Stone, Miss Coupe’s former partner, told police he saw a masked man get into a 4x4 after hearing the sound of a “machine gun”.

The trial continues