A suspected hitman who disguised himself as a Deliveroo e-bike rider to shoot three people, including a girl celebrating her eighth birthday, has been jailed for 38 years.
Jazz Reid, 33, fired 11 bullets, hitting the child twice and her 34-year-old father five times, as they sat with other family members in a car in Ladbroke Grove, northwest London, on 24 November last year.
Both survived the attack, which was one of three targeted shootings prosecutors said were planned and executed with “precision”.
The Old Bailey heard drug dealer Reid would drive to the area in a hire car before disguising himself with a Deliveroo backpack, takeaway box and e-bike.
The motive behind the shootings is not not known but Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC said they could have been planned “contract killings”.
She told Reid: “You may have been carrying out shootings on behalf of others, perhaps relating to drug dealing or for some other form of financial gain”.
In the first shooting on 9 October 2024 last year, he fired two shots, hitting Ameile Buncombe, 27, in the thigh at the victim’s home in Notting Hill, leaving him seriously injured.
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No one was injured in the second attack, when Reid shot four times towards an address in north London linked to the same target as the third shooting, 13 days later.
On this last occasion the father was shot in the back, chest, abdomen, and pelvis area, while his daughter was shot in her buttocks and foot after the family had been celebrating her birthday at a trampoline park.
Sentencing Reid to 38 years in prison, of which he’ll serve at least two thirds, with another five-year extended licence period, the judge said: “The entire family was traumatised by the attack. No sentence I pass will remediate their suffering.”
The mother of the girl and partner of the man who were shot said in an emotional victim impact statement she read to the court that the shooting had “shattered my family’s life”.
She said she has “flashbacks every day” and carries “huge guilt for not protecting my girl from what happened”.
“Every time I see a Deliveroo bike I shudder, even though I know it’s not him,” she said.
She said her partner has been left with a bullet lodged in his shoulder, needing 24-hour care, with no feeling from the chest down and unlikely to be able to ever walk again.
“The incident has completely turned my daughter’s life upside down. She is a shadow of the bubbly, bright, larger than life character she once was, and now rarely wants to go out and socialise while suffering daily trauma and questioning why it happened,” she said in a statement.
The mother told the court she calls Reid the “Bad Man” and wants “him to be hurt two times like her” – referring to the two gunshots.
“It makes me sick there’s still a bullet inside my baby girl,” she said.
Dramatic police bodyworn camera footage captured the moment armed police boxed in the car Reid was driving in a hard stop manoeuvre before smashing the windows to make an arrest.
One of two guns used in the shootings was recovered from under a concrete slab outside Reid’s home, in Uxbridge, west London, while the other was found in a moped.
The e-bike and Deliveroo disguise were found at the flat of an associate on the Swinbrook Estate in north Kensington.
The court heard there were references to gangs in a probation report but prosecutor Michael Goodwin KC said there is no evidence to suggest Reid is affiliated with any gang or that the shootings were gang-related, although the motive is unknown.
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Reid continues to deny being the gunman, claiming to the jury he was “set up” over a £10,000 debt and the gun was “planted”.
But he was found guilty of attempted murder of the father and wounding the girl with intent. Neither victim can be identified for legal reasons.
He was also convicted of wounding the other victim with intent and of firearms offences relating to the incidents.
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Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Richard Scott, said: “This was a truly shocking series of crimes carried out by a man intent on committing murder.
“His actions were carefully planned and executed. He intended to kill his targets but also ended up seriously injuring an innocent young girl who must now live with the trauma caused by Reid’s wicked actions.”
