'Dangerous individual' given 14-year jail term over gang shooting in Leeds and for making gun threats to couple at their home in Wakefield

Damien Cooper was handed the extended prison sentence for two firearms offences which occurred just a fortnight apart.

Graham O'Sullivan, prosecuting, said shots were fired at a house on Woodview Mount, Beeston, at around 7.30pm on May 1 last year.

The occupants of the house did not report the incident to the police but other people in the area heard the shots and contacted a housing association.

Police were informed after it was discovered that bullets had been fired into the door of the property.

CCTV footage recovered from the area showed a dark coloured Volvo, which had false number plates, driving away around the time of the shooting.

The vehicle was caught on camera a short time later near Cooper's home in the Belle Isle area of the city.

Cooper and two other men, who have not been identified, could then be seen walking through a ginnel and going into the defendant's home on West Grange Walk.

Minutes later a call was made to the fire service to report that the Volvo was on fire.

Cooper then ordered a taxi to his home and got into the vehicle with another man.

The taxi stopped close to where the car was on fire and the other man got out.

Mr O'Sullivan said firefighters were at the scene and it was likely that the man was checking that the car had been destroyed.

But Cooper was identified as a suspect after his DNA was recovered from a petrol can.

Mobile phone evidence also showed him to have been in the area of the shooting around the time the shots were fired.

The taxi was driven to a house on Belle Isle Road where Cooper got out.

He then went to stay in a hotel in Blackpool for two nights with another man.

The prosecutor said the defendant went there "until things cooled down" but he was arrested soon after he returned to West Yorkshire.

The 30-year-old was released on bail but committed the second firearms offence days later, on May 17.

Mr O'Sullivan said Cooper's ex-girlfriend had been at a party at a house in Ossett.

Cooper rang the couple who lived at the property demanding to know where she was but she had left by the time he made the call.

He then turned up at the house in the early hours of the morning while the couple were in bed.

They were awoken by the sound of breaking glass and heard Cooper shouting "where is she?".

Cooper pointed a gun at the female victim when she looked through a window.

He then left but was arrested when the incident was reported to the police.

Cooper denied being involved in either offence when he was interviewed.

Mr O'Sullivan said: "He said he went to Blackpool to get some rock for the kids and it was nothing to do with him."

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

Cooper admitted the offences on the second day of a trial.

He has a previous convictions for serious violence.

A probation officer assessed him as posing a serious danger to the public.

Charles Blatchford, mitigating, said: "He doesn't want to say who was in the car with him. It might put him in danger."

Mr Blatchford said Cooper had been part of a group rather than playing a leading role in the first offence.

He said Cooper's actions after the shooting incident led him to be caught easily by the police.

The barrister said: "It hardly shows him to be a criminal mastermind."

Cooper was told he must serve a custodial term of nine years, two-thirds of which must be spent in prison.

He must then spend a further five-year period on licence.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said he agreed with the probation officer, saying: "He's a dangerous individual'.

He told Cooper: "You and what must have been criminal associates had an argument.

"The cause of that argument and what it involved and who it was with is a mystery.

"The way you chose to solve that dispute was to drive to the targeted premises.

"A shotgun was discharged at the door of those premises and the car was torched in the vicinity of your home."