Grandmother of murdered man shot dead in Sheffield sends urgent message to police

Lynn Hamblett issued her plea in the wake of a gun attack in which a 12-year-old boy was shot in Sheffield.

The drive-by shooting on Northern Avenue, Arbourthorne, on Sunday, January 12, has triggered a police investigation into the attack and a major crackdown on organised crime gangs in the city.

But Mrs Hamblett, whose 22-year-old grandson, Jordan Thomas, was killed five years ago says more needs to be done.

Jordan was gunned down at point blank range as he sat in a car at a set of traffic lights on Derek Dooley Way, Sheffield city centre, in December 2014.

Detectives believe it was a revenge attack between two feuding gangs following a fatal stabbing three years earlier.

One man, Jama Ahmed, is serving 36 years behind bars for Jordan's murder but four others believed to hold vital information about the shooting have been on the run ever since.

Mohammed Ali, 33; Jamal Ali, 30; Saeed Hussein, 30 and Ahmed Warsame, 31, are believed to have fled to Somalia in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

Today, Jordan’s grandmother, from Sheffield, said: “People that fire a gun, use a knife, or carry them, know they could take someone’s life. There is no place in our society for anyone who could do that, but it keeps happening.

“And it is coming to something when young kids of 12 years old are affected by it. What has our society come to?

“The problem is that those doing it are not afraid of the police or the consequences.”

Mrs Hamblett said: “When I hear of another incident it does not bring it back what happened to Jordan because is never leaves me. Five years on and it is like it was yesterday.

“What it does do is make me realise that another family is going to feel like we do for their rest of their lives too.

“It happens too often. The police have got to get control back.”