Two sent to jail for shotgun murder after nightspot row
TWO “cold-blooded” killers who celebrated with a takeaway after blasting a young man in the face with a shotgun have been jailed for life for his executionstyle murder.
Ty Blake, who pulled the trigger, and Sharn Miles, who drove the men to and from the scene, were told by a judge yesterday that they would serve a minimum of 32 years in prison for the “brutal” attack.
James Teer, 20, was shot dead after Miles pulled up in the victim’s road in a stolen car and called him over, in Goosemoor Lane, Birmingham, on August 8 last year.
Unsuspecting Teer went to the driver’s side window where Blake, sitting in the passenger seat, unloaded both barrels into his head.
Sentencing both men at Birmingham Crown Court, Mr Justice Martin Spencer likened the shooting of the “handsome and well-loved” victim to an “execution”.
He said: “This was a cold-blooded killing, carried out clinically and mercilessly, planned well in advance, in revenge for a perceived slight which offended your arrogant self-esteem.”
In a victim impact statement read to court, Mr Teer’s mother said one moment their son had been “laughing and joking”, looking forward to his first lads’ holiday and 21st birthday, the next she was looking at him lying in the road, covered by a blanket.
“I had to identify him by his tracksuit trousers and trainers,” she said.
After leaving their victim lying in the street, remorseless Blake, 19, and 20-year-old Miles, both from Birmingham, then got rid of the gun, before casually strolling to a fastfood restaurant.
CCTV showed the men ordering food, with Blake recorded holding a tissue to his lip which had been cut by the gun’s powerful recoil.
The shooting was triggered after an altercation at a Birmingham nightclub a week earlier.
Jurors unanimously convicted Blake and Miles of murder, on Wednesday, also finding Blake guilty of theft and burglary, after stealing the car.
Miles, of Gowan Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham, and Blake, of Shustoke Road, Shard End, stared at the floor as the sentences were read out.