Five men sentenced after business dispute leads to street fight in Harehills

After various previous hearings and a trial where two defendants were found guilty in their part of the affray and two not guilty, a total of five men appeared at Leeds Crown Court today for sentence following the incident on July 4 last year.

Outlining the case for the prosecution, Austin Eric Newman told the court that there had been a dispute over the sale or transfer of a sub lease of a shop owned by Mohammed Tanveer (37) and Irfan Ramzan Choudry (46), both of St Martin's Avenue, Chapeltown. There had been an argument with a third man and he left the shop but Jamshaid Woothkhal (20), who is the nephew of Tanveer, was preparing to close the Al Madina store on Dorset Road when he heard "men were coming back to the shop" and he feared there would be trouble.

CCTV captured the following sequence of events which involved some of the men wielding weapons, a car being damaged to the point where it was written off, a man suffering head injuries and damage being caused the the shop.

The video that was played in court showed tens of people in the street witnessing the violence that broke out at around 9pm on that day.

Passing sentence, the judge, Mr Recorder Sam Green QC said: "It appears that some relatively trivial business dispute was the catalyst for the events. It was disgusting and unseemly. It involved make-shift weapons from metal pipe to a cricket bat and a set of weighing scales used to bash a man over the head."

Jozef Pulko, aged 22, of Dorset Road Harehills was sentenced to nine months in prison suspended for two years and ordered to pay £300 costs, for his part in damaging the car. Zahaad Ramzam, aged 21, of Hazelhurst Road, Daisy Hill, Bradford was given a community order for 100 hours and ordered to pay £300 costs for public order offences which saw him breaking windows at the shop. Woothkhal, of Lascelles Terrace, Harehills was given 40 hours unpaid work and a £60 costs order for the damage he caused to the car.

Tanveer and Choudry were both given an 18 month jail term suspended for two years, 200 hours unpaid work and costs of £1000 each.

Recorder Green added that he recognised the men were all of good character and hard working, family men as outlined by their defence barristers.

After the case Det Insp Phil Jackson, of Leeds District CID, said: “These men were involved in some really ugly scenes of violence that took place in residential streets and saw a large number of people fighting with weapons.

“It was a shocking incident that caused understandable concern in the local community. We quickly arrested a number of suspects and painstakingly built up a clear evidential picture of their involvement, helped particularly by quality footage from Leedswatch CCTV.

“The catalyst for this confrontation was believed to be a business dispute, but there can be no excuse for the appalling behaviour that people witnessed that day. Violent incidents such as this can never be tolerated and will always attract a high level of police response and investigation to identify those involved and bring them to justice.

“Our colleagues on the local neighbourhood policing team played a key role in reassuring the community after this incident and we hope the successful conclusion of this case at court will further support that work.”