Wolverhampton shooting: 'This isn't Grand Theft Auto, it's real life'

The grandmother of an 11-year-old girl injured in a gangland shooting said the gunmen had treated life like the game Grand Theft Auto (GTA).

The schoolgirl was shot in the leg alongside a boy of 15 while they were in a park in Wolverhampton.

Three men were found guilty of attempted murder on Thursday after a trial heard their intended target was in a nearby Mini Cooper.

"They just treat it like a video game," the girl's grandmother told the BBC.

"Like it's ok to go GTA shooting round the streets... it's not it's real life. It could have been so much worse."

Kian Durnin, Martinho De-Sousa and Tireq McIntosh were convicted of the shooting at Birmingham Crown Court.

The girl, who cannot be named due to a court order, had played at the play park in Shelley Road, Bushbury, minutes from her home, countless times, her mother said.

"I dropped my daughter off at the park that day thinking that she would be safe," she told the BBC.

"In a safe place, where she could go and play with her friends."

The girl's mother and grandmother told the BBC the attack had shocked the whole community

The bullets were fired toward the children's playground from a stolen Ford Focus at about 15:00 BST during a car chase between rival gangs. They were intended to hit the occupants of a black Mini Cooper, also stolen.

Instead they struck and wounded two innocent children as they played.

'I need my mummy'

The girl's mother described sprinting shoeless from her home after a call to say her daughter had been shot, fighting through people gathered at the scene.

"There was so many people around her trying to help," she said. "She had a jumper pressed on her, someone else got a belt to tie around her legs and she was crying.

"She just said, 'I want my mummy, I need my mummy,'... but I couldn't actually get to her because of the amount of people that were around her... I could just put my hands through the bars in the playground and just hold her, just try and reassure her that way."

Both children were taken to hospital for treatment, miraculously escaping serious injury.

But the mother said her 11-year-old, who considered herself "lucky", was undergoing weekly therapy for post-traumatic stress.

The moment one of the men leaned out the car and fired the gun was caught on camera

"Whenever she heard motorbikes, loud bangs, crowds of people she would zone out and I'd have to kind of click my fingers in front of her and say, 'you're safe, you're ok'," she said.

Durnin, 22, of Milton Road, De-Sousa, 24, of Deansfield Road and McIntosh, 23, from Valley Road were all found guilty of attempting to murder a person unknown.

During the trial at Birmingham Crown court, jurors heard the shootings were part of a "murderous" feud "straight from a movie director's script".

Prosecutor Tim Cray told the court the video evidence showed "two armed groups existing cheek by jowl with each other", engaging in a high-speed chase with "murderous intent".

Kian Durnin, Tireq McIntosh and Martinho De-Sousa (left to right) are due to be sentenced next week

The mother described the strain of reliving the incident in court, imagining how scared her child must have been.

"[I'm] just disgusted that it happened," she said. "Disgusted and... sad that she's experienced that."

The girl's grandmother added: "It just brings everything back. It shouldn't have happened.

"I never thought anything like that would happen at a children's park."

West Midlands Police described their "significant success" in seizing 134 guns this year, up from 121 in 2022. A total of 20 firearms were taken off the street during December alone, police added.

The force also said there had been 40 fewer shootings compared to last year and a number of key arrests in recent weeks.

"It's affected everybody's mental health," the girl's mother said.

"Everybody just can't believe what's happened... it has been a ripple effect on the family and the community."