- Fiona Cullum provided cover for Hassan Hussain and Yassin James
- The men were wanted over the murder of innocent teacher, Sabrina Moss
- The gangsters sprayed bullets at a bar while mother-of-one Miss Moss and her friends sheltered from the rain in their party dresses, court heard
Fiona Cullum is facing jail after she sheltered one of the killers of an innocent nursery teacher hours after she was gunned down as she celebrated her 24th birthday
A mother who sheltered one of the killers of an innocent nursery teacher hours after she was gunned down while celebrating her 24th birthday is facing jail.
Fiona Cullum, 25, provided cover for Hassan Hussain, 30, as he and fellow murderer Yassin James, 20, were hunted by police.
She also lied when asked by police about Hussain after he was arrested on 2 October 2013 over the murder of Sabrina Moss on Kilburn High Road, northwest London.
The men sprayed bullets at a bar while mother-of-one Miss Moss and her friends sheltered from the rain in their party dresses.
Her friend Sabrina Gachette, 24, was lucky to survive after being blasted in the back with a sawn off shotgun during the attack outside Woody Grill, in South Kilburn.
The Old Bailey heard the shooting was part of an ongoing rivalry between gangs in South Kilburn gang and Kensal Green.
Hussain, James and their getaway driver Martell Warren, 23, were jailed for a total of 111 years at the Old Bailey last year.
Cullum claimed she was so ‘out-of-it’ on drink and drugs she had no idea Hassan was sheltering in her small north London flat.
‘It is at least a possibility that in this sort of state that Hussain entered... and stayed there for however long, entirely without her knowledge, while she was sleeping off the effects of the night before,’ her barrister Rebecca Randall said.
But an Old Bailey jury found her guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice for sheltering Hassan and providing a false statement to police.
She was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice for sheltering James after the jury could not reach a verdict.
She was standing trial alongside Reid Daniel, 24 and Matthew Bouzemada, 22, who were both convicted of assisting getaway driver Martell Warren, 23.
Rakheed Daniel, 21, was found not guilty of the same offence.
The men sprayed bullets at a bar while mother-of-one Sabrina Moss (left and right) and her friends sheltered from the rain in their party dresses
Her friend Sabrina Gachette, 24, was lucky to survive after being blasted in the back with a sawn off shotgun during the attack outside Woody Grill, in South Kilburn
Ms Gachette punched the air as the verdicts were read out while Bouzemada and Reid Daniel hugged Cullum as they were remanded in custody to be sentenced on 17 March.
Judge Stephen Kramer QC told Cullum ‘be under no illusions, the likely sentence is one of custody’ as he bailed her to be sentenced on 10 April.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said: ‘This case is not concerned with who was involved in the plan to seriously harm members of the South Kilburn gang, or the shooting of Sabrina Moss and others when that plan was carried through.
‘This case, rather, is concerned with events after that dreadful incident because in the period immediately following the murder, each of these defendants took steps to assist those responsible for the shooting to evade apprehension and to deny the police evidence relating to Warren in the form of the mobile phones he had been using in the run up to and during the period of the murder, and relating to the car he had been driving.’
Fiona Cullum, 25, provided cover for Hassan Hussain (right), 30, as he and fellow murderer Yassin James (left), 20, were hunted by police
‘In the case of Fiona Cullum, she provided such assistance to Hussain and James by sheltering them in the hours after the murder when the police investigation on and around Kilburn High Road was at its most intense, and then lied to the police about them when she was spoken to shortly after Hussain and James were arrested.’
She told police she did not remember speaking to Hussain and that he had not been at her address.
Two of her co-defendants were found guilty of helping Warren, who fled the country shortly after the murder, to distance himself from two mobiles that tied him to the attack.
Reid Daniel passed the phones on to Bouzemada before Warren was arrested on 27 August 2013 as he tried to re-enter the country, but the phones have never been found.
She was standing trial alongside Reid Daniel (right), 24 and Matthew Bouzemada (left), 22, who were both convicted of assisting getaway driver Martell Warren, 23
‘He [Warren] resolved, as his actions later on 24 August demonstrate, to flee before he was caught and he needed to distance himself from those items, his phone and car, so that he could do so,’ said Mr Atkinson.
‘Equally Hussain and James had used two firearms with an intention to kill..
‘Although hooded when they approached the group, of which Sabrina Moss and Sabrina Gachette were a part, there was clearly a risk that they might have been recognised or that they might be connected to the Vauxhall Corsa.
‘It would clearly have been prudent for them to know whether they were now police targets before returning to their normal address.’
Cullum, of St Johns Wood, north London, denied harbouring Hussain and James and making a false statement to police.
She denied three charges of perverting the course of justice.
Bouzemada, of Harlesden, Reid Daniel, of Hayes, and Rakheed Daniel, of Willesden, denied perverting the course of justice by concealing or destroying Warren’s phones.
Warren, of Kensal Green, northwest London, Hussain, of Willesden Green, northwest London, and James, of Wembley, northwest London, were previously convicted of murder and attempted murder.
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