Families of victims of UK’s notorious ‘Burger Bar Boys’ killers targeted 20 years on

From left, Cheryl Shaw, Charlene and Sophie Ellis, and Letisha Shakespeare on New Year’s Eve, 2002. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

It remains one of the UK’s most shocking gangland killings. In the early hours of 2 January 2003, best friends Letisha Shakespeare, 17, and Charlene Ellis, 18, were gunned down as they stood outside a new year party in Aston, Birmingham.

Mistakenly killed in an escalating feud between rival inner-city factions the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, their double murder propelled both gangs to national notoriety.