Pictured: Jailed Wolverhampton man who fired in tit-for-tat shooting at wedding celebration

Shamail Malek took an imitation firearm to a Mehndi party at the Gurjarati Association, Merridale, on July 1, where a crowd of well over 100 people enjoyed food, speeches, laughter and dancing as they toasted the bride and groom.

But it turned to terror later on when Malek, of Lynton Avenue, Claregate, was amongst a group who went outside for fresh air and a smoke and an unknown gunman pulled up in a car, got out and started shooting into the crowd.

The 21-year-old immediately retaliated with his firearm – which was never recovered – and which he tried to pass off in the two-day trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court as a hand-held firework he had brought to set off in celebration of the wedding.

It wasn't the first time Malek had possessed an imitation firearm. Judge Simon Ward said he seemed to have had them on a regular basis going back to his teenage years, with two instances mentioned in a long list of historical convictions which also included drug possession and supply, drink-driving and wounding with a knife. In 2020 the former gang member narrowly avoided custody when stabbing the hostess of an all night party.

The jury on Thursday took just four hours to find him unanimously guilty of possessing an imitation firearm with the intent to cause the fear of violence on July 1.

Jailing him for three and a half years, Judge Ward said: "I am quite sure what happened on July 1 didn't happen out of the blue – whoever arrived with a shotgun and used it was there for a criminal reason but I don't think you were unaware something like that might happen.

"You seem to have habitually had an imitation firearm down the years going back to when you were a youth and also have convictions ranging from using a knife to wound someone to possessing and supplying drugs and driving offences.

"I accept you didn't start the shooting it was the man who will remain unknown but I can't accept you didn't know something like this was going to happen. And if you did know something was going to happen the better course of action was to tell the police, not to arm yourself accordingly."