Moses Mathias, Schoolboy Killer, To Be Sentenced

Youth Who Murdered 16-Year-Old Schoolboy Faces Sentencing

A killer who went on the run at the age of 15 after the fatal shooting of a schoolboy in a pub car park will be sentenced today.

In August 2009, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) took the unusual step of naming the then youth Moses Mathias as a wanted suspect for the murder of 16-year-old Giuseppe Gregory.

Huge photographs of Mathias were beamed on to a big screen in Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester as police also offered a £15,000 reward for information to track him down.

Mathias, now 18, remained at large until he was arrested in Amsterdam earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and GMP.

He was flown back to the UK in June and four months later admitted the murder of the youngster who was gunned down in the early hours of 11 May 2009 in a car outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford.

In March 2010, Mathias's associates Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, then aged 19 and 18, were jailed for life and ordered to serve minimum terms of 21 years and 23 years respectively after they were convicted of Giuseppe's murder.

Their trial heard the pair carried out the attack in revenge for the murder of Zerihun's boyhood friend Louis Brathwaite, also 16, who was shot dead in a betting shop in Withington, south Manchester, in January 2008.

They were were affiliated to Fallowfield Man Dem, a splinter group of the notorious Gooch Gang, who targeted Giuseppe and his friends because of their association to the rival gang the Longsight Crew.

Rumours were rife of the identity of the gunman who shot Louis, and the person they thought had shot their friend was sitting in front of Giuseppe in the targeted Volkswagen Golf.

The suspect had been arrested a year after Louis's murder and was later released on bail pending further inquiries.

He was eventually told in April 2009 that no further action would be taken against him.

Zerihun and Ndlovu, wearing balaclavas, emerged from bushes in the dark as the vehicle left the car park, spraying the car with eight shots.

The three other passengers in the car escaped uninjured and rushed Giuseppe to hospital but he died hours later.

Mathias, of no fixed address, also pleaded guilty to possessing - with Zerihun and Ndlovu - an imitation firearm, a self-loading pistol, a .32 pistol and six .32 bullet cartridges.

Sentencing takes place at Manchester Crown Court.