A teen gunman burst into a shop and opened fire as ‘gang rivalry’ spilled out into the streets of Stockport. Jacob Richards, then just 15, fired a gun three times in a shop in Cheadle Hulme, before shooting at a passing delivery driver who happened to witness his escape. No-one was hurt.
Richards, now 18, has been hauled before a court for an extraordinary catalogue of crimes, including involvement in an arson attack at a family home and a conspiracy to possess other firearms revealed by recordings of phone calls in prison.
Despite his tender age, prosecutors claimed he had become ‘firmly entrenched in a culture of gangs and guns’. He ‘bragged’ about his crimes in raps, also captured on calls recorded from jail, Manchester Crown Court heard.
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Prosecutors told how the shooting occurred in broad daylight at DA Shop on Worcester Road in the summer of 2021. Richards and another man, Remico Embrack, 20, both went into the convenience store armed with guns.
Embrack pointed his weapon towards two members of staff, the shop owner and an assistant. A third person, a customer, was also present at the time.
The shop owner threw himself and his colleague to the floor behind the counter, pressing the panic alarm which let off smoke. Embrack left but Richards followed in and fired three times towards the counter. The gun, believed to be a converted blank firing pistol, discharged pellets.
As he fled, Richards locked eyes with a delivery driver passing the terrifying scene in his car. “What?,” Richards shouted, before pointing his gun at the car and firing it again.
No-one was hurt in the shootings. A third man, Daimar Sancroft, 21, had waited outside the store armed with a large machete. The attack on the shop was reported to police as a suspected attempted robbery. But prosecutors claimed it appeared ‘to be a revenge attack in the context of criminal gang rivalry’.
Richards later told a social worker that the shooting had been an ‘act of retaliation’. Prosecuting, Hannah Forsyth described Richards’ targeting of the delivery driver as a ‘gratuitous act of violence’, which he later ‘boastfully’ rapped about on recorded prison calls ‘without regret’.
Richards and Embrack were seen together later that day on CCTV footage in ‘good spirits’, the court heard. Richards was arrested at his home two days later, where officers seized the weapon which Embrack had brandished at the shop, which was found to be a converted blank firing pistol.
A month before the shooting, Richards had plotted an arson attack ultimately carried out by an associate. It followed a falling out between Richards and a former friend who lived at the property with his mother.
The mum was at home at about 10am on May 16, 2021, when she saw a man at her front door holding a petrol bomb. He threw a metal bar at the front window, in a bid to smash the glass.
But it failed and when he threw the bomb it did not smash the window, instead causing damage to the exterior. As he fled, the man also set fire to his own leg.
Richards and Embrack admitted to conspiring to plot the arson attack, which left the mum terrified and feeling unsafe in her own home. The offender who threw the petrol bomb was previously handed a sentence of two years detention.
"This was a horrific attack which could so easily have had devastating consequences," said Judge Elizabeth Nicholls. Five days later, Richards turned up at the same house himself and tried to smash the window by repeatedly throwing a brick at it, but failed.
Following the shooting the following month, Richards was kept on remand at Wetherby young offenders institution in Leeds. His calls were monitored by the authorities. He ‘glorified’ the use of firearms in a series of raps and dismissed his actions as a ‘pi** take thing’, the court heard.
Prosecutors brought further charges against him on the strength of the prison calls, in which Richards apparently believed he could speak freely. He said he had other firearms and ammunition that had not been seized by the police, and attempted to arrange for them to be retrieved and sold off.
Amira Kacou, 21, featured in the conversations, while another man, Xavier Edwards, 22, was a ‘potential customer’, prosecutors said.
The firearms discussed on the calls have not been found by police. Richards was also sentenced for a series of other violent offences committed during his arrest and time in Wetherby.
He punched and slapped a female custody officer following his arrest, writing a letter of apology to her the next day in which he said ‘I don’t use my head when I’m a bit annoyed’.
He stabbed a prison officer to the leg with an improvised weapon, thought to be a sharpened pen or paintbrush, while being restrained during a fracas in Wetherby in September 2021, causing minor injury to the officer. Richards was being restrained after a disturbance when he had hot water thrown in his face. In February the following year he attacked another inmate at the same institution.
Defending Richards, Phil Barnes said the most serious offences were committed over a ‘short period’ in 2021, but conceded the defendant has not ‘covered himself in glory’ since. He said Richards has had ‘time to reflect’ and said his ‘violence appears to have slowed’.
For Embrack, Robert Fitt said that the arson attack ‘didn’t appear to be his dispute’, and that the defendant had not sourced the firearms for the shooting.
Defending Sancroft, Niamh McGinty said ‘immaturity’ and a ‘desire to impress’ were factors in his offending. Richard Vardon, for Kacou, said the defendant ‘fell in with the wrong crowd’. Huw Edwards, for Edwards, said the defendant’s involvement was ‘short lived’ and that he was susceptible to ‘manipulation’.
Richards, of Shawdene Road, Northenden, is due to be sentenced in June. Embrack, of Harley Road, Sale, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.
Sancroft, of Bexhill Road, Stockport, was sentenced to five years in prison. Kacou, of Mouldsworth Avenue, Withington, was jailed for two years.
Edwards, of Buxton Road, Stockport, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years. Richards and Embrack pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered. Richards also admitted attempting to commit damage.
Richards, Embrack, Sancroft pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and possessing a blade. Richards further admitted possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing ammunition with intent to endanger life, possession of cannabis and assaulting an emergency worker.
Embrack admitted possessing a class A drug with intent to supply and possessing cannabis. Richards, Kacou and Edwards, pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply firearms.
Sancroft admitted offences of aggravating vehicle taking and having a bladed article. Richards pleaded guilty to affray, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, unauthorised possession of a weapon and section 47 assault in relation to incidents in Wetherby.
