Teenager killed in Sheffield as he was hit by car targeting e-bike riders, court told
Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb was thrown into the air after being struck by the car in Darnall last June
A 16-year-old pedestrian was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" when he was killed by car which mounted the pavement as it was deliberately driven at a group of e-bike and moped riders, a jury has been told.
Jurors at Sheffield Crown Court were shown graphic video footage on Tuesday of the moment Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb was thrown into the air following the collision with an Audi on Staniforth Road, in the Darnall area of Sheffield on June 4.
Opening the murder trial of Zulkernain Ahmed, 20, Armaan Ahmed, 26, and Adam Mohammed, 30, Alistair MacDonald KC, prosecuting, told a jury that the car was used as a "weapon".
Mr MacDonald explained to the jury of eight women and four men how CCTV footage recorded the car driving on the wrong side of the road in a deliberate attempt to hit a group of three riders - two on e-bikes and one on a moped.
One of the riders was hit and thrown over a hedge, causing him serious injuries, before the vehicle collided with Abdullah, the prosecutor said.
Mr MacDonald said: "The car was coming from the opposite direction and the front offside, or right-hand side of the car, struck Abdullah, who was thrown into the air and sustained catastrophic injuries in the course of that collision, from which there was no hope of recovery."
The prosecutor described the extensive attempts that were made to save Abdullah's life, including how paramedics opened his chest on the pavement to try to restart his heart.
But the teenager was pronounced dead in hospital.
Mr MacDonald said: "Well, what was the car doing on the pavement?
"It had been used, say the prosecution, as a weapon.
"The target was not Abdullah, who happened, tragically, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Instead, it was three lads who were on electric bikes - or two on electric bikes and one on a moped - and who had themselves been travelling on Staniforth Road in the same direction as Abdullah had been walking, but in the opposite direction to the car that struck Abdullah."
Mr MacDonald told the jury that the car collided first with one of the riders, La'rome Divers, who was "hit so hard that he was thrown over a hedge into a nearby garden".
The prosecutor said Mr Divers has refused to make a statement to the police.
He told the court that "without the slightest doubt", CCTV footage shows "that this car was deliberately steered onto the wrong side of the road and into the path of the cyclists", even passing a pedestrian refuge on the wrong side of the road.
He said: "It is the prosecution case that, at no point, was any effort made to slow the vehicle down before the collisions took place."
Mr MacDonald said the CCTV sound evidence was that the car engine was revved as it approached the riders.
He told the jurors that they needed to watch the footage of the collisions, adding "there is no way round that fact".
The footage shown in court captured the incident from a number of angles.
The prosecutor said that Zulkernain Ahmed was driving the car and his brother Armaan was in the back, along with Mohammed.
Another Ahmed brother, Zain, was the front seat passenger. Mr MacDonald said police have not be able to trace him.
Zulkernain Ahmed and Armaan Ahmed, both of Locke Drive, Darnall, and Mohammed, of Acres Hill Road, Darnall, all deny murdering Abdullah and attempting to murder each of the three riders.
The prosecution opening is expected to continue on Tuesday afternoon.