Chris Kaba was a core member of a notorious south London gang and accused of being the gunman in an alleged bid to murder a rival in a nightclub shooting days before he was killed.

The 24-year-old’s gang links, previous convictions and violent past can be reported for the first time after Metropolitan Police marksman Martyn Blake was cleared of murder and the judge Mr Justice Goss lifted reporting restrictions.

Brandon Malutshi was shot twice in the leg with a revolver as Kaba, 24, opened fire on the dancefloor of The Oval Space, in Hackney, east London, and on the road outside as the victim tried to escape in the early hours of 30 August 2022.

Kaba, known by his street name “Itch”, had arrived at the scene in the same Audi Q8 he was driving on the night of 5 September 2022, when he was shot in the head by Mr Blake, 40, as he tried to escape from police in Streatham, south London.

The same vehicle was linked to a shooting in Bromley, southeast London, on 22 May 2022, in which two people were targeted with a shotgun, the Old Bailey heard in legal argument not in front of the jury in Mr Blake’s murder trial.

The Audi was also used as one of two getaway vehicles the night before Kaba was killed after three masked men fired a shotgun twice at unknown targets outside a Brixton school, jurors were told.

But they didn’t know Kaba was found with a balaclava in his pocket and gunshot residue on his sleeve when he was shot, although prosecutors suggested it may have come from one of the firearms officers.

No weapons were found in the Audi, which was not registered to Kaba, although he was one of the known drivers.

A handgun was discovered on 14 September 2022 by cleaners behind the bins of a property along the route he took before he was killed, but the weapon is not thought to be linked to the incident.

Kaba was due to face a civil court hearing 10 days after his death, where police would make an application for a gang injunction, used to place restrictions on people involved in gang violence.

He had previously been the subject of an interim version of the order, but it had elapsed while he was in prison for other convictions.

The 67 gang

Mr Blake’s barrister Patrick Gibbs KC had argued “bad character” evidence relating to Kaba should be put before the jury in the murder case.

But the application was refused by the judge because it wasn’t deemed relevant to the issues in the case as the officer didn’t know Kaba was driving the car, only that it had been linked to a shooting the night before.

The judge rejected an application made on behalf of Kaba’s mother to extend reporting restrictions beyond the end of the trial.

Mr Gibbs described Kaba as the “principal gunman” of the Brixton Hill-based 67 gang, which has more than 50 known members.

A police report submitted to the court as part of an unsuccessful bid to keep the anonymity of the officer, previously known as NX121, described the group as an “identifiable street gang”.

The gang is in an “active and violent dispute with a rival faction of street gangs”, including “numerous firearms discharges, stabbings and murders” which has played out in gang-related music since 2014, it said.

Kaba had appeared in drill rap videos with other 67 members online.

Its members are “embedded in a culture of drug supply, serious violence, firearms and knife possession” and are part of the “highest harm street gang in Lambeth”, according to the report.

Mr Gibbs said there was specific intelligence to indicate there was a risk to Blake’s life because the gang might seek to identify and murder him as revenge for the fatal shooting of Kaba.

Previous convictions

Kaba has convictions dating back to when he was aged 13 for offences including stabbing with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a knife-enabled gang assault when the victim was stabbed and had his arm broken, and two other knife offences.

In 2015, when he was 17, Kaba was convicted of affray and possession of an offensive weapon – a belt – over an incident in which a revolver-style handgun was recovered nearby, but the weapon wasn’t linked to him and he was never charged in connection with it.

He was jailed for four years after being convicted of possessing an imitation firearm in 2017 and in August 2020 was handed a five-month prison sentence for failing to stop and possession of a knife, which was discarded from a vehicle.

Attempted murder trial

Had he not been killed, Kaba would’ve stood trial for the attempted murder of Malutshi, who was affiliated with the Wandsworth Road-based 1-7 gang, along with six other men.

His name was on the indictment at the Old Bailey trial earlier this year, where it was an agreed fact that Kaba was a “core member” of the 67 gang, but his role in the attack after Notting Hill Carnival couldn’t be reported until the end of Mr Blake’s trial.

A witness said Kaba, who was wearing a balaclava, was “moving mad” as he identified his “ops” before pulling a gun out of a bag smuggled into the club by Marcus Pottinger.

Malutshi was shot on the busy dance floor, then again as Kaba chased him as he fled into a side street, suffering wounds to his left and right thighs.

Kaba left the scene in the back of a Range Rover, while Shemiah Bell, known as “Bones” because of his dog bone necklace, drove the Audi away for Kaba to collect later.

Bell was jailed for 10 years and Pottinger for nine years after they were found guilty of wounding with intent to cause GBH and possession of a firearm to cause fear of violence.

Sentencing the men, Judge Simon Mayo KC said: “Having spotted Malutshi in the nightclub, I am sure that Kaba decided he would confront him and shoot him.”

Connell Bamgboye, nicknamed “C-Rose” or “Conz”, whose passport was found in the Audi on the night Kaba was shot, was sentenced to five and half years in prison after he was convicted of the firearms offence.

Bamgboye, who was also stopped in the Audi by armed police in the first half of 2022, was convicted with Kaba in 2015 over a nine-man fight, and they were both later involved in a gang altercation at an unlicensed music event in Romford, the court heard.

Kaba was stabbed in the stomach, while Bamgboye and another person were injured in a shooting when a row erupted.

‘He should never have stood trial’

Before the jury delivered its unanimous not guilty verdict after around four hours of deliberation on Monday, they passed a note to the judge asking for permission also to pass comment, which was denied.

But Mr Justice Goss refused an application from the media, supported by a lawyer for Kaba’s family, to make the note public.

Matt Cane, the general secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said Mr Blake “should never have stood trial” and his fellow officers “remain astonished that a brave colleague could be charged with murder”.

“The ramifications of this case remain widespread; police officers should not have their livelihoods, and their liberty, put at risk for performing what unequivocally, in this case, was his lawful and appropriate function,” he said.

“It remains a matter of grave concern, that investigations into the most serious complex and dynamic operational scenarios, such as this, are carried out by those who seemingly have little, or no, experience of policing, no understanding of this type of fast-moving and dangerous operational trained tactic, involving split-second decision making in the most difficult and challenging circumstances.

“The flaws which arise in such investigations, are then compounded by poor decision making by the Crown Prosecution Service, and others.”