Innocent electrician from Queen’s Park was shot dead in November 2010

Three men accused of shooting dead an innocent man from Queen’s Park in a botched revenge attack in Paddington were cleared of murder today (Wednesday).

Kervin Kavuala, 27, of Granville Road, Kilburn, was said to have shot Daniel Smith, 22, to avenge the death of his brother Tyno, who was killed three years earlier in Harlesden in a suspected rival gang attack.

But he claimed the shooting could not have been a revenge attack because he had always believed Tyno, a drug dealer who went by the street name Tank, had been killed by police.

Jurors at the Old Bailey cleared Kavuala, along with Zeleke Forde, 30, from Watford, and Shane Lewis, 32, Fairlight Avenue, Harlesden, of murder after just 55 minutes’ deliberation.

A fourth man, 25-year-old Jonathan Yeboah, was cleared of firearms charges.

Members of Mr Smith’s family burst into tears as the verdicts were announced and had to be escorted from the courtroom.

Mr Smith was shot as he went to collect food at a branch of KFC in Harrow Road, while returning from a first date in the early hours of November 22, 2010.

Prosecutors, who were unable to identify who had fired the fatal shot, alleged the electrician had been targeted because he bore a ‘striking resemblance’ to Stacey Theophane, a rival gang member believed to be responsible for the death of Tyno.

He was shot dead as he sat alone in his Audi A3 in Scrubs Lane, on March 4, 2007, in an attack believed to have been carried out by rivals from the Kensal Green-based Mozart Bloods, but to date no one has been charged.

The gang is locked in a bitter rivalry with the Family About Cash (FAC) street gang to which the four accused were said to have belonged.