‘MASSEY REVENGE’ THUGS LOSE APPEAL BID
GANGSTERS FAIL IN APPEAL OVER HEFTY JAIL TERMS FOR THEIR ROLES IN SHOOTING OF BOY AND MUM AFTER ‘MR BIG’ MURDER
TWO members of Salford’s A-Team crime gang have failed in a bid to escape long prison sentences for their part in the shooting of a little boy and his mother.
Carne Thomasson, 30, and Aldaire Warmington, 34, were jailed for 28 years and 25 years respectively in 2019.
They were both found guilty of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm in connection with the shooting, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in their attempt to dump the Audi S3 getaway car. They were among eight men convicted in connection with the attack.
In the shooting, seven-year-old Christian Hickey and his mother, Jayne, then 30, were hit in the legs on their doorstep in Winton, Eccles, on October 12, 2015. The boy suffered life-changing injuries.
At the Court of Appeal, Thomasson appealed against his conviction and renewed an application to appeal against his sentence, while Warmington applied for leave to appeal against the length of his sentence. But judges refused all three applications.
Thomasson was said in court to have been on the driveway of the Hickey’s home when a gunman shot mother and son with a Heckler and Koch P7 semi-automatic pistol, firing at least three times.
The attack was described as a revenge attack for the murder of ‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey on July 26, 2015, outside his home in Clifton. He was killed with an Uzi sub-machine gun by Mark Fellows.
Mr Massey’s murder followed a serious of shootings, stabbings, and a grenade attack on a home linked to a dispute between two rival criminal gangs.
Prosecutors said the first gang, the A-Team, was headed by Stephen Britton and that Warmington and Thomasson were prominent members of the group. The second gang, the Anti-A Team, was said to be headed by a man called Michael ‘Cazza’ Carroll.
They claimed Thomasson and Warmington decided to select someone with strong links to Mr Carroll for an attack avenging Massey’s killing – and chose Christian Hickey Senior, the boy’s father.
In court, Jayne Hickey had told how at about 9.25pm there was a knock to the window of her home. She opened the front door with her son and saw a man stood in her driveway leaning against her VW Golf car. He shouted ‘is your husband in?’ and she replied ‘one sec.’
She heard the man say ‘nah, nah’ before a second man appeared and started shooting, hitting them both. The gunman has never been traced.
The prosecution case was that Thomasson was the first man and said ‘nah, nah’ to the gunman to indicate he should not shoot as Christian Hickey senior was not in the doorway.
Thomasson contested that he did not match Mrs Hickey’s description of the ‘nah, nah’ man. In interviews while in hospital, where she required major surgery, Mrs Hickey had told detectives that the man had hair over his ears, his face was marked by acne, and ‘a bit bumpy,’ and he appeared young.
Mrs Hickey later said she saw an article on the website of a national newspaper concerning the arrest of Thomasson in Spain on February 16, 2016, when a loaded Browning pistol, ammunition and a weighted vest were seized by police. It was alleged they were in Spain to seek and kill Michael Carroll.
The report included a police custody picture of Thomasson taken in 2013, which Mrs Hickey said she immediately recognised as the man who had been standing on her drive.
However, Thomasson suggested at his trial that his name had been given to her by Michael Carroll, who had wanted to frame him.
At the Court of Appeal, Simon Csoka, QC, for Thomasson, said Jayne Hickey’s description did not match Thomasson as he had a crew cut at the time and did not have the facial disfigurement or markings.
He argued that the flaws in the identification were so unreliable it was ‘dangerous’ evidence.
However, in dismissing Thomasson’s appeal against his conviction Lord Justice Fulford, who was sitting with Mrs Justice McGowan and Mr Justice Fordham, said Mr Csoka’s submission that Mrs Hickey’s identification evidence was poor and should have been excluded was ‘without any proper foundation.’
Thomasson had also claimed that his sentence of 23 years plus an extended five years was excessive and unjustified.
Dismissing his leave to appeal his sentence, Lord Justice Fulford said Thomasson, who admitted being a drug dealer, was dangerous and an extended sentence was required. He added: “Carne Thomasson’s conduct in moving firearms out of Manchester represents significant criminality on its own.”
Warmington, appealing his sentence, argued there was no evidential basis for the judge in the trial to conclude he had a senior role within the A-Team.
But Mr Justice Fulford, in dismissing his application for leave to appeal his sentence, which had previously been turned down by a single judge, said: “We agree the single judge... was entitled to conclude that he was a senior member of the A-Team and had influence on others.
“The judge was similarly entitled to conclude that he played a notably leading role in the Hickey shooting and was responsible for involving others in it.”