Mother and seven-year-old son shot on doorstep in bungled gangland hit, court hears

Court hears gunman was targeting child’s father during 2015 gun attack at Salford home amid gang tensions

Christian Hickey and his mother Jayne were shot on the doorstep of their Salford home in October 2015 (PA)

A seven-year-old boy and his mother were shot on the doorstep of their Salford home by a gunman during a botched gangland hit attempt, a court has heard.

Christian Hickey and his mother Janye were hit in the legs with bullets fired from a handgun, which had already been used to shoot a man named Jamie Rothwell in Wigan six months earlier, jurors at Manchester Crown Court were told.

The intended target of the shooting was the boy’s father and Ms Hickey’s husband, Chris Hickey, who lived in the Winton area of the city at the time of the incident in October 2015.

Opening the case at the start of the trial of eight men on Wednesday, prosecutor Paul Greaney QC, said: “Both mother and son had been shot in the legs, causing serious injuries, and both required extensive hospital treatment, but survived.

“The prosecution case is that what happened that night was a plan to kill, in all probability Chris Hickey was the target, but something went wrong.”

The court heard Mr Hickey is a friend of Salford crime boss Michael Carroll, who at the time of the shooting had been trading tit-for-tat attacks with another gang, the A-Team, led by Stephen Britton.

Mr Hickey had been at home on the evening of the attack with his wife and son when they heard a knock at the window.

Jurors were told Ms Hickey had then gone to answer the door, with her son stood behind her.

“A man was there, down the drive. He shouted, ‘Is your husband in?’ Jayne Hickey replied, ‘One sec’, at which she heard the man say something like, ‘nah nah’,” Mr Greaney said.

“A second man then appeared. He was armed with a gun; indeed, he was armed with the same Heckler & Koch self-loading pistol that had been used to shoot Jamie Rothwell. The second man started shooting. Jayne Hickey slammed the door.

“Looking around, she saw that Christian had been shot. Then she realised that she too had been injured.”

Ms Hickey later identified the man she spoke to as Carne Thomasson, an established member of the A-Team gang who was arrested with Mr Britton and others with a loaded handgun in Spain in February 2016.

Thomasson, 28, Christopher Hall, 49, Aldaire Warmington, 32, and John Thomasson, 49, all deny conspiracy to murder and perverting the course of justice.

James Coward, 22, Dominic Walton, 26, and Lincoln Warmington, 32, deny perverting the course of justice in relation to the disposal of an Audi car after the Hickey shooting.

Jacob Harrison, 26, has admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm to Mr Rothwell after he was shot and injured at a Wigan car wash in March 2015.

John Kent, 54, denies the same charge and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice for the Rothwell shooting.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA