Shooter Zain Shah denied intending to kill the crowbar-wielder he shot in the head.

The 22-year-old told jurors that he had found the handgun in the driver’s door pocket of the Audi A3 he had borrowed from a friend – whom he refused to name – earlier that afternoon.

Shah admitted knowing the black S-line Audi was stolen. He was aware it was on false plates and that there was a machete and a handgun in the vehicle.

But over two-hours in the witness stand at Oxford Crown Court yesterday, he denied knowing whether the handgun was loaded or that he had aimed it at victim Waris Kayani’s head.

Prosecutors say he shot Mr Kayani from the driver’s seat of the stolen Audi in St Mildred’s Avenue, Luton, on September 23 last year. It followed a tit-for-tat dispute that had its origins in a road rage incident three days earlier involving a friend of the victim’s, Imran Hussain, and the sister of Shah’s friend Bilal Ahmed.

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On the day of the shooting, Shah was one of those said to have set about Mr Hussain’s car while ‘Big Billy’ Ahmed punched him in front of his toddler. The defendant’s Vauxhall Insignia was allegedly damaged later on the same afternoon outside his home.

Shah told the jury that he had been on St Mildred’s Avenue at the time of the shooting in order to meet his friend Mr Ahmed, who lived in the area, so they could get parts for his damaged Vauxhall. Mr Ahmed had said he would meet him at the top of the road. “I wouldn’t be parking a stolen car outside his house,” Shah said.

He saw the victim crouching between parked cars with an item in his hands and stopped the Audi. Mr Kayani came towards him at a fast trot, shouting the ‘street slang’ acknowledgement ‘wagwan now’ – meaning ‘what’s going on now’, he said.

“I’ve got a guy running towards me with a crowbar in his hand saying ‘wagwan now’ in an aggressive tone,” he said under questioning from his barrister Ashraf Khan.

“I panicked and I grabbed the gun. It was a reaction. It was an over the top reaction, but it was a reaction.

“I thought he was going to run and hit me with the crowbar.”

There was ‘no reason’ for Mr Kayani to have used the crowbar, he suggested. As far as he was aware, the bar-armed man was not involved in the earlier trouble. He claimed to have been unaware that Mr Kayani was a friend of Mr Hussain’s.

Shah claimed to have pointed the gun towards the arm in which Mr Kayani was holding the bar – and not at the man’s head.

Mr Khan asked: “When you shot him, you must have known what would happen if you shot somebody?”

He replied: “I thought [it] would just hit his arm and he’d probably just drop the crowbar.”

At the time he had not thought about the consequences of shooting someone at near point blank range, he admitted. “It all happened so fast,” he added.

After firing the gun, he reversed up the road then dumped the car in a quiet residential street and, taking the gun with him in order to return it to his friend, ran across a park. He exchanged calls with Mr Ahmed, he said.

He bought a cheap Nokia phone and SIM card then called a friend, who gave him a lift to a cousin’s house out of town.

He handed himself into the police station on September 30. Asked why he answered ‘no comment’ to detectives’ questions, he said: “I was scared at the time. I thought I could end up in prison.”

Mr Khan asked his client why he had admitted wounding Mr Kayani with intent, but not the more serious charge of attempted murder.

“Because I didn’t attempt to murder. My intentions were not to kill anyone,” he said.

Shah, of St Winnifred’s Avenue, Luton, denies attempted murder. The trial continues.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward