This is the moment a man entered a shop brandishing a baseball bat and attacked a group of men.
Argjend Canaku, 23, who was convicted of the attack advised the CCTV footage of the incident from August 14 in Blackbird Leys ‘told a terrible story’.
Mr Recorder John Bate-Williams said the attack was linked to Oxford’s ‘despicable drugs trade’.
Sitting at Oxford Crown Court, the judge was told that Canaku armed himself with a baseball bat and a knife and then chased a group of men around a corner shop. CCTV footage showed a woman pushing a pram past the Blackbird Leys store as the gang went into the shop on August 14.
It was claimed the target who was chased through the store – had attacked Canaku.
The judge – who had heard that Canaku had previously been arrested for offences of drugs and violence but never charged – rejected his more innocent explanations.
‘This appears to me to be a series of very violent offences connected with the despicable drugs trade here in Oxford. You were part of a group carrying out a brazen, clearly targeted attack on one or more of the men who had been outside the store.
‘You were an active member of the gang, playing an important role. The one carrying not only a baseball bat but a knife, each capable of inflicting terrible, potentially fatal injuries.’
Canaku, of no fixed address, admitted violent disorder, possession of a bladed article and possession of an offensive weapon.
Samantha Giffin, mitigating, asked the judge to impose a community penalty or a suspended sentence as an act of mercy to her client, who had no previous convictions.
Her client had a traumatic childhood in his native Albania, where his policeman father had been murdered. After seeking asylum in the UK, he had briefly stayed with an older man before being housed by children’s social services. He had left school without formal qualifications.
