Seven men guilty of biker Gerry Tobin's murder
The remaining two members of motorcycle gang The Outlaws have been found guilty of the murder of Hell's Angel Gerry Tobin as he made his way from a Warwickshire biker festival.
Karl Garside, 45, and Ian Cameron, 46, both from Coventry, were found guilty by a 10-2 majority verdict of killing Mr Tobin, who was shot dead on the M40 motorway in Warwickshire in August last year.
Mr Tobin, 35, from Mottingham, south east London, died almost instantly when he was shot as he rode along the M40 at about 90mph on August 12. He had been attending the Bulldog Bash festival at Long Marston, near Stratford-upon-Avon.
The trial had been told that he was targeted simply because he was a "fully-patched" Hell's Angel by members of the Outlaws South Warwickshire chapter.
Karl Garside and Cameron were both cleared by the jury of possessing a shotgun.
Jurors, who had been deliberating for eight days, convicted four other members of the Outlaws biker gang of the murder of mechanic Mr Tobin earlier this week.
Simon Turner, 41, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, and Dane Garside, Karl Garside's 42-year-old brother from Coventry, were found guilty on Monday of killing Mr Tobin and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Malcolm Bull, a 53-year-old road sweeper from Milton Keynes, and Dean Taylor, 47, from Coventry, were found guilty of murder and possessing a shotgun on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A seventh defendant, 44-year-old Coventry man Sean Creighton, pleaded guilty to murder and firearms charges before the trial began. They will all be sentenced on Friday.
Mr Tobin's mother cried silently as the final verdicts were returned.
Two separate shots were fired at Mr Tobin, described in court as a law-abiding citizen, from two different handguns as he returned to his London home from the biker festival.
Both Creighton and Turner, the gang's president and sergeant-at-arms, opened fire from a Rover car which had pulled alongside the victim's Harley Davidson. One of the bullets skimmed the base of Mr Tobin's helmet, lodging in his skull and killing him instantly.
Another round, apparently aimed at the bike's rear tyre, passed through a mudguard and was never found despite extensive forensic searches.
Timothy Raggatt QC, prosecuting, told the Birmingham Crown Court trial that the fatal shot was fired as both Mr Tobin and the two gunmen, who were both mechanics by trade, sped along the M40 at about 90mph.
The "thoroughly cold-blooded" killing followed three days of "scouting" by the seven gang members, the entire membership of the South Warwickshire chapter of the Outlaws.
Dane Garside, a lorry driver and father-of-seven, was at the wheel of the Rover and manoeuvred the vehicle so the fatal shot could be fired.
Three other defendants - Karl Garside, Taylor and Cameron - acted as "back-up" on the day of the murder, patrolling the M40 in a white Range Rover.
Bull, driving a Renault Laguna, was also in the area when Mr Tobin fell victim to the "military-style" operation.
Mobile telephone evidence proved that the occupants of the Rover contacted the "units" in the Range Rover and the Renault and ordered them to stand down moments after the murder.
All seven men returned to the Coventry area and the Rover was set alight in a country lane north of the city.
On the opening day of the trial, Mr Raggatt told the jury: "The incident was a thoroughly ruthless one, executed with great skill and precision, great timing... and was the product of a great deal of planning."
There was not a scrap of evidence, Mr Raggatt said, that any of the murderers had ever met Mr Tobin. The bullet which killed him was fired from a revolver, while
