BBC News reported that Lobsang Hassan, a Guyanese, was charged with the murder of Darren Deslandes, 34, who was killed in the Newton Arms pub in Thornton Heath. Hassan, 30, who provided no address to police, was also charged with two counts of attempted murder and related firearms offences when he appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court.
Deslandes’ 26-year-old brother, Junior, was also wounded in the incident and remains “critical but stable”, according to the report. Hassan will appear at the Old Bailey on 16 April.
The UK Guardian had earlier reported online that Deslandes was shot in the head by the gunman in revenge for ejecting him from a New Year’s Eve party. The report referred to Deslandes as a martial arts expert who died trying to protect family and friends from “the maniac, who opened fire inside the Newton Arms pub in Queen’s Road, Thornton Heath, at 5 am…”
Deslandes, a home ownership officer for Amicus Horizon in Croydon, was shot in the head as he tried to wrestle with the gunman who had been thrown out of the pub, the report said. It went on to quote a friend of Deslandes who recounted the incident. “Apparently Darren kicked the guy out twice for being loud and aggressive but he came back the third time with a gun. From what I heard Darren tried to take the gun off him, because he was very well trained in martial arts, and that’s when the gun went off and hit him and Junior,” the friend told the Guardian.
The friend said a woman had triggered the incident since one of Deslandes’ friends had taken his new girlfriend, who was Hassan’s ex-girlfriend, to the pub. Deslandes and his younger brother were shot in front of their mother Lurline, pub landlord father Wintworth and 12 year-old brother as the family cleaned up after the party.
The man who shot Deslandes reportedly fled the scene in a dark coloured 4×4 vehicle.
