Killer of Giuseppe Gregory in Stretford was sucked into gangs after surviving shooting when aged 14

 

schoolboy aged 15 obsessed by guns and gangs murdered another teenager as part of a feud before fleeing overseas in a bid to escape justice. Moses ‘Mojo’ Mathias is believed to be Greater Manchester's youngest ever gangster convicted of murder. He was one of three gunmen with ties to the Gooch gang who killed Giuseppe Gregory, pictured right. Giuseppe, 16, was in a Volkswagen Golf which was shot at outside a party at the Robin Hood pub in Stretford in May 2009. It is not believed he was the intended target of the attack. Giuseppe Gregory's mother: My son was killed by a boy with a loaded gun Mathias went on the run to the Netherlands but was arrested and hauled before the courts where yesterday he admitted murder and firearms offences. The M.E.N. can reveal that Mathias was sucked into the violent world of Manchester gangs after surviving a shooting himself just after his 14th birthday. He was shot in the leg in Hulme Park by a gunman – understood to be connected to the Doddington gang – back in July 2007. It is not known if Mathias was the intended target of that shooting – or if he was shot simply for socialising in Gooch gang territory. But the attack, which happened during a tit-for-tat cycle of violence, changed the course of his life. During his trial, Njabulo Ndlovu, one of Mathias’ accomplices, described his transformation. He said: "I’ve known Moses since 2006. In those days he was not a gang member, but after he had been shot he became an angry young man and talked about gangs all the time. " Mathias, formerly of Randlesham Street, Prestwich, even got a tattoo pledging his allegiance to the Gooch. Script on his arm reads ‘Loc’ – a term used by Los Angeles Crips which means ‘crazy’, short for the Spanish slang term ‘loco’. Rusholme-raised Mathias, now 18, also told a police officer who visited his school that he was friends with Gooch gang members – and filled his Facebook pages with pictures of his encounters with them. On the night of Giuseppe’s murder, Mathias got the murder weapon – a 9mm Tokarev which he had hidden at a friend’s house in Crumpsall. Ndlovu and another man, Hiruy Zerihun were also involved in the attack. Zerihun used the gun brought by Mathias to fire the bullets which killed Giuseppe. Mathias also opened fire using another weapon, a .32 handgun. It is believed the shooting was in revenge for the earlier murder of 18-year-old Louis Brathwaite. Zerihun and Ndlovu were jailed for life after being found guilty of Giuseppe’s murder last year. Mathias was finally arrested in June this year when border guards checked passports on a high-speed train from the Netherlands to Germany.