A self-confessed robber has admitted picking up a gunman moments after a nine-year-old girl was hit in the head in a drive-by shooting but claimed he thought it was a “smash and grab”.
The young victim was eating dinner with her family when the rider of a Ducati Monster motorbike fired six shots outside Evin restaurant in Kingsland High Street in Dalston, East London, on May 29 last year.
A bullet lodged in the girl’s brain and three men sitting an another table were wounded in the thigh, leg and backbone, the Old Bailey has heard.
Javon Riley allegedly picked up the gunman nearby in a stolen Nissan Juke on false plates before transferring to a Range Rover in North London.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Riley, 33, admitted being involved in various lucrative crimes but denied knowing about the planned shooting said to be linked to a Turkish gang feud.
He claimed he had been contacted by a “third party” and offered around £40,000 to be involved in a “smash and grab” robbery of 60 kilos of drugs.
His role was to be the driver for a two-man bike “snatch team”, neither of whom he ever met, jurors heard.
Defence barrister Tyrone Smith KC said: “You have described the person who contacted you as a third party. What’s his name?”
Riley said: “I cannot give his name.”
Mr Smith pressed: “Three men have been shot and a nine-year-old girl, you understand that? You understand a whole host of people want answers to what happened on May 29. Can you tell me the name of the third party?”
The defendant replied: “I cannot give you that. I fear for my safety and my family.”
Mr Smith said: “You are in custody. If you are in custody why are you in fear for your own life?”
Riley said: “It’s not just my life but my family too. They can get me anyway.”
He told jurors that he had three children with two different partners, as well as at least four other girlfriends or “friends with benefits” living around London.
Asked what he had thought the plan was at the time, Riley said: “That it was just going to be a robbery, a smash and grab.”
The defendant went on to admit he had carried out reconnaissance and was “spotting” for the targets of the robbery.
He was provided with an image of one of the male victims, saying: “I was just told it was going to be a group of friends sitting outside the restaurant.”
Asked why he never checked whether the other members of the robbery team were capable, Riley told jurors: “If someone is putting me in a robbery, they are not putting me with idiots. There is no need to ask them ‘do you know what you are doing, do you know your stuff?’.”
Mr Smith asked: “Do you accept the evidence shows you on 29th May drove the gunman from Colvestone Crescent shortly after he had shot and injured three men and a young girl?”
The defendant replied: “Yes.”
Mr Smith went on: “At the time did you know he had shot those people at the restaurant?”
Riley replied: “No.”
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Mr Smith said: “Were you part of a plan or agreement that a shooting take place that night?”
Riley, who grew up in Walthamstow after emigrating from Jamaica as a boy, denied it.
The prosecution has alleged the shooting was a “planned assassination” amid a dispute between rival gangs, the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Turks, also known as the “Bombacilars”.
The men seated outside the restaurant had affiliations towards the Hackney Turks and the ones who had ordered the shooting were from the Tottenham Turks, it is claimed.
Riley told jurors he was aware of the two gangs but had no dealings with them and played no role in their long-running dispute.
Earlier, Riley told jurors that he left college at 18 and was involved in “various stuff of criminality” as well as setting up his own delivery business and having a stake in a clothes brand.
The court heard Riley has a string of convictions dating back to 2008 including for possession of cannabis and cocaine, driving offences, and having an offensive weapon and a blade in his car.
In addition, the defendant said he had been involved with stealing cars, drug dealing and robberies, although he had never been caught for those offences.
He said he began taking cars “for fun” at the age of 15, going on to steal them to order and shipping them abroad.
He picked drug dealers to rob because the money could not be traced and the victims were unlikely to go to police, jurors heard.
The defendant said he would carry out between two and five robberies a month, sometimes working with others, and would make anything from £30,000 to more than £200,000.
Asked about his role in the robberies, Riley said: “Sometimes I’m the driver or the muscle.”
Riley, from Tottenham, North London, has denied the attempted murder with others of Mustafa Kiziltan, Kenan Aydogdu and Nasser Ali.
He has also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the nine-year-old girl, who cannot be named because of her age.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
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