Imposing heavy sentences on two men convicted of fatally shooting a teenager after mistaking him for someone else, a High Court judge has urged people to report gang activity or risk losing more innocent lives.

Justice Carlisle Greaves said: “Cases like these illustrate why every citizen in this country must take this firearm violence and gang behaviour seriously. We cannot escape by residing in a philosophy that it is them and not us, or that it is the gangsters or criminals killing one another, or [that] it is not us, so we turn dumb and don’t speak up when we are supposed to.

“We don’t report what we are supposed to, and we don’t give statements to the police and stick to them, and we don’t give evidence in court. Silence, arrogance, recalcitrance, ‘don’t carishness’, by us, the ordinary citizens of this country, only emboldens and enables the gangsters and illegal firearm carriers in this country to do what they do, and as this case demonstrates, it may be only a matter of time before it leads to innocent you.”