Members of murder gang were on probation

FOUR of the gang found guilty of the rape and murder of Mary-Ann Leneghan had been under probation supervision.

Drug dealer Adrian Thomas, aged 20, Michael Johnson, aged 19, Jamaile Morally, aged 22, and 18-year-old Indrit Krasniqi were all serving community sentences at the time the 16-year-old was stabbed to death and another teenager shot and left for dead in Reading, England, last May.

British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said: “I am already looking at whether there are any other areas where changes need to be made and will not hesitate to add any further issues raised by this case to the conclusions that I will be presenting to the House of Commons by the end of Easter.”

Thomas, Morally, Morally’s brother Joshua, aged 23, and their friend Llewellyn Adams, aged 24, were found guilty of the killing at Reading Crown Court last week while Johnson confessed during the eight-week trial.

The case concluded yesterday, with Krasniqi also found guilty of murder and attempted murder.

He was cleared on two counts of rape.

At the end of the trial it was revealed that Thomas, Johnson, Morally and Krasniqi had been under probation supervision in south London at the time of the killing.

The trial had heard how Mary-Ann and a friend were abducted in Reading on May 7 last year.

The killing was a revenge execution for a robbery which Thomas believed the girls had “set up”.

After a three-hour ordeal of torture and rape in a hotel room they were driven in the boot of Adams’s car to a park where Mary-Ann’s friend was forced to watch as the girl was “butchered” in front of her.

As Mary-Ann lay dying, her friend had a gun put to her head and was shot at point-blank range. She survived and testified during the trial.

In April 2000, Johnson, then aged just 13, attacked a 13-year-old boy with learning difficulties.

He was sent to a young offenders’ institution for three-and-a-half years for kidnap, false imprisonment and assault.

He and two other youths spotted the boy on a train in south-west London. Forcing the boy off the train, Johnson and his friends, aged 14 and 15, took their victim to a disused car park nearby.

There they tied him, upside down, with a rope. They beat the boy unconscious, fracturing his skull.

He was given an 18-month detention and training order in July 2003 for assaulting two minicab drivers, affray and possessing an offensive weapon.

Ten days before he stabbed Mary-Ann more than 40 times, he was given community service for assaulting a policeman and possessing cannabis.

Although Johnson’s five co-defendants do not have as brutal a past as him, most are well-versed in criminality, Reading Crown Court heard.

In October 2004, Jamaile Morally was given a community rehabilitation order for handling stolen goods.

Jamaile’s brother, Joshua was not on probation supervision at the time of the murder but has convictions dating back to 1999 for robbery, shoplifting, criminal damage and taking a vehicle without consent.

Krasniqi received a referral order from Richmond Youth Court in June 2004 for two common assaults.

In January 2005, he was given community service for obstructing a policeman and driving without insurance or a licence. He was warned in August 2003 for possessing cannabis.

Adams, a university student, is the only one of the six murderers with no previous criminal record.

In a short statement Mary-Ann’s family spoke of their pain.

The statement said: “Mary-Ann was a wonderful girl who was greatly loved by her friends and family, she will be sorely missed. The verdicts today have come nearly a year after she was taken from us. We are now left with the task of trying to piece our lives back together.”