Two masked ‘assassins’ were first jailed as teenagers after one of them cycled up to a police officer with a loaded gun in his pocket.
Rueben Murphy's own lawyer said he would have to be "an extremely stupid villain" to approach a policeman while carrying a weapon. But a judge said that was exactly what he did - leading to the arrest of the then 19-year-old and his partner in crime, James Freeman, 17, back in 2015.
A little over six years later, the two thugs carried out separate shootings in the space of just six weeks. Bungling Freeman, 24, armed himself with a loaded pistol and hunted down a rival crook at the Old Bank Pub in Page Moss, only to be disarmed by his victim and shot twice in the chest with his own gun.
