'Highly dangerous' Sheffield gunman set to be sentenced for shooting 12-year-old boy in street
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Stephen Dunford, aged 25, is to be sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court tomorrow, Friday, October 2, with the judge in the case having already warned him that a life sentence is a possibility.
Dunford, of Fellbrigg Road, Arbourthorne, was found guilty of attempted murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life last month after a trial.
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Hide AdHe was convicted on the basis that he was the gunman who opened fire at children in Northern Avenue, Arbourthorne, in January – hitting a 12-year-old boy in his thigh.
Dunford was also found guilty of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life after a separate shooting incident on Northcote Avenue, Heeley, two days before the gun attack.
The child he shot said he saw two men with guns but recognised Dunford from his eyes and voice when he said ‘we got one’ after the gun attack.
Another boy was said to have had a ‘miraculous escape,’ with a bullet only narrowly missing his head and neck.
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Hide AdBrandon Bailey, 26, of Manor Park Way, Manor Park, is also to be sentenced tomorrow after being found guilty of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life.
He was arrested as part of a wider police probe into the shooting and his DNA was found on a firearm recovered by officers.
It is not claimed he was in the car at the time of the shooting.
Detective Chief Inspector Jade Brice, of South Yorkshire Police, described the drive-by shooting as ‘an atrocious act’.During the trial it emerged that in a phone call from prison Dunford recited a rap, which he had written himself, containing lyrics about his involvement in the shooting, in which he said a ‘youth was hit by a stray’.The phone call was recorded and shared on social media.DCI Brice said: “We could quite easily be talking about the death of a 12-year-old, thankfully that is not the case,” he said.Speaking after the trial last month, Julian Briggs from the Crown Prosecution Service described Dunford as a ‘highly dangerous individual’.