SHOTGUN THUGS MUST STAY IN JAIL
Judges back jurors over Daniel home ‘hit’
TWO members of a gang which carried out a shooting at the home of a notorious crime clan member have lost bids to have their convictions quashed.
Zak Bennett, 28, and Ian Moyes, 34, claimed they had fallen victim to miscarriages of justice and took their case to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh.
The thugs and co-accused Chloe Walker, 22, and Courtney McCredie, 23, were jailed for eight years each last July. A jury heard they opened fire at Annette Daniel’s home in Robroyston, Glasgow, in July 2017.
Daniel told the court how she was cradling a child when she heard a car close by in the early hours of July 7. She then heard two bangs.
Daniel – the sister of late Glaswegian crime boss Jamie Daniel – did not report the matter to police.
Yesterday, lawyers for Bennett and Moyes claimed that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that they had participated in the crime against Daniel, and asked that their clients’ convictions be quashed.
But judges Lord Carloway, Lord Glennie and Lord Turnbull found that jurors were entitled to convict the duo. Lord Carloway said: “The appeals must be refused.”
Last year’s trial heard how police snared the gang as a result of a picture taken by Walker. It showed her posing in her underwear beside the shotgun used in the attack. Another snap showed Bennett appearing to snort
white powder from her bare bottom with the same firearm still there.
Daniel is one of Scotland’s most notorious shoplifters.
She was jailed for six months in September 2011 for stealing thousands of pounds of clothing from shops in Stirling.
Giving evidence in the case against those accused of shooting at her home, Daniel insisted it was dark on the night of the attack and she wasn’t able to see what was going on.
But it emerged that in a call to her nephew, she asked him: “Did you know my windows got shot at?”
Yesterday, Bennett’s advocate Tony Graham QC insisted there wasn’t enough evidence to show his client was involved. Moyes’s counsel, Geoff Forbes, added that his client’s conviction was unsafe because the Crown relied upon forensic evidence gained from tracksuit bottoms belonging to the accused.
The Crown insisted that firearms discharge residue found on the clothing and DNA entitled jurors to conclude that he was involved in the attack.
Prosecution lawyer Ashley Edwards QC told the appeal judges that there was sufficient evidence to entitle the court to uphold the convictions.
Lord Carloway said the judges would issue a written judgment detailing their reasons for rejecting the appeals in the near future.
Did you know my windows got shot at?
ANNETTE DANIEL IN CALL TO HER NEPHEW