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London's Most Vicious Gang Jailed

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d defenceless victims and bundled them into waiting cars before leaving them so traumatised the effects are still being felt a year later.

They even boasted to their mostly white and Asian victims how "racist and homophobic attacks were the norm for their team".

The gang tortured their innocent victims, holding guns to their heads, knives to their throats and using baseball bats and cigarette lighters.

Today at Wood Green Crown Court the gang of four smiled as their sentences were read out.

Sentencing, Judge Witold Pawlak said: "These offences are sufficiently serious to justify life sentences. You have all had unhappy family lives, but there comes a time when sympathy for your background evaporates.

"The attacks usually took place late at night. You hunted in a pack and the violence was gratuitous and sadistic. Some of you appear to be addicted to violence. You treated tour victims as if they were targets in an arcade game.

"The attacks happened invariably on men, alone, near underground rail or tube stations.

"Some of your victims were kept prisoner for as long as an hour and were intimidated verbally and physically. In a word, these were appalling crimes."

The court heard that all four men arrived in the UK as teenagers. Recommending the four for deportation at the end of their sentence, Judge Pawlak added: "All of you came to this country as teenagers. All of you have spent a considerable amount of time in custody.

"Your contribution to society has been that you have subjected your victims to a senseless and brutal crime. I have no hesitation in recommending all of you for deportation or expulsion at the end of your sentences.

Judge Pawlak commended the work of the Territorial Policing Crime Squad for the eight month-long investigation that cost more than £300,000.

The gang were eventually caught using mobile phone data, which showed they had made calls to friends and family using the victims' phones just minutes after the brutal attacks.

DNA of some of the defendants was also found at the scene of some of the attacks and on the stolen property. In one stolen car forensic officers found DNA from blood left by five other victims

After Detective Inspector Lloyd Gardner said: "They were the most violent street robbery gang to have operated in London in the past five years. They were also the most violent that I have come across in my 20 years as a police officer.

"Hopefully today will send out a clear message that if you engage in this type of criminality, not only will we catch you, you will also get sent to prison for a very long time.

"The violence they used was sadistic and gratuitous. Victims were not only abducted, they were tortured and some were hospitalised. Some received serious injuries and the mental scars will live with them for the rest of their lives - they are all still recovering from their ordeal.

"One of the attacks was homophobic, but in the main, these were ordinary members of the public randomly targeted as they left tube and rail stations across north East London and assaulted with baseball bats, knives and guns and taken away in stolen cars."

One of the victims, father-of-two Paul Mitchell, 48, from Harlow in Essex, said: "I was walking to work. I parked my car and heard somebody running towards me. I turned round to see a fist about five inches from my face. the punch fractured my eye socket and cheekbone in four places, causing a displaced fracture of 20mm.

"It knocked me to the floor and then I was kicked and punched in the chest and head by four of them. They took everything I had including my car. They just left me for dead in the street.

"They told me they would shoot me if I didn't give them the PIN number and they took my car and house keys. Because they had my house keys and address, I feared for the safety of my family. We changed the locks as soon as we could.

"It had a huge effect on my life and the life of my family. I am going for counselling and it's changed the way I treat people. I am sometimes scared to walk the streets alone.

"I feel a lot of anger towards them. I hope today will bring some closure, but looking at them in the dock, they didn't seem very remorseful. The level of violence they used on all of their victims was completely unnecessary.

"I'm still suffering from these injuries and parts of my face are still numb and I still feel the psychological effects.

"It is absolutely right that these men should be deported. They have contributed nothing ot this country. All that they have done since they have been here is commit crimes."

Ex-Dagenham and Redbridge footballer Luis Frota, 22, and his brother Pedro Frota, 19, both Portuguese nationals from St Mary's, Barking, Essex, Sofian Majera, 22, from Bentry Close, Dagenham, a Rwandan national, and Robert Lincoln, 18, a Jamaican national from The Clarksons Gascoigne Estate in Dagenham, variously admitted a total of 20 counts.

These included 17 counts of robbery, two of handling stolen goods, and one count of assault with intent to rob between August 31 2005 and December 12 2005.

Their haul included eight cars, including two BMWs, two Audis and one Lexus, along with electrical goods including mobile phones, digital cameras and laptops.

They also stole briefcases, wallets, bankcards and cash.

Lincoln and Majera, who arrived in the UK from Rwanda in 1997 to "escape the violence", were both given 14 years for ten robberies.

Pedro Frota was given 12 and a half years and his older brother was given four and a half years.

All four men have a string of previous convictions, for robbery, theft and arson.