Six years each for Telford drive-by shooting

Two men have been sentenced to more than six years each in prison after a drive-by shooting at a home in Telford while a mother and her two children sat inside.

Shrewsbury Crown Court was told that Selina Green had to pull her children to the floor as a bullet whistled past as she sat in her home in Leicester Way, Leegomery.

The attackers were Shakeel Khan, aged 26, of no fixed abode and Abzul Khan, aged 24, of Thornhill Road, Hand- sworth, Birmingham.

They admitted conspiracy to possess a firearm intending to endanger life at an earlier hearing.

Judge Robin Onions sentenced the pair to six years and eight months in prisonand told them the dispute which led to the shooting 'ends – and it ends here'.

The court heard that the shooting was an escalation of an eight-year feud between the Khans and the Greens.

Neighbours were woken in the early hours last March by the sound of gunshots being fired at the house.

The court was told Shakeel Khan recruited Abzul Khan and possibly others to take part.

Judge Onions, who said he had been told money had changed hands for the shooting, said: "It may be you recruited others to frighten the Green family."

Mr Hugh O'Brien Quinn, prosecuting, told the court a silver Ford Fiesta pulled up outside the house just after midnight on March 26 and shots were fired.

He said Selina Green was in the living room with her children at the time. "The lights were on and a car was in the drive," he said.

The court heard the gun was fired three times with one bullet going through the living room window.

Mr O'Brien Quinn said: "Selina Green felt the noise of the bullet past her ear and pulled the children to the floor."

The bullet then went through the living room, through a glass panel, through the dining room and struck a double glazed door shattering a pane.

Two other bullets were recovered outside. Temporary Detective Superintendent Paul Williamson, from West Mercia Police, said after yesterday's hearing: "It is sheer good fortune that no-one was injured when the shots were fired into the property."