Three guilty over girl's shooting

Three men have been found guilty of a gang-related shooting that left a five-year-old girl paralysed, shattering her dreams of becoming a dancer.

Thusha Kamaleswaran, now six, was hit by a bullet when the trio opened fire into her aunt's south London shop in March last year.

Nathaniel Grant, Kazeem Kolawole and Anthony McCalla were convicted by an Old Bailey jury of causing her grievous bodily harm with intent.

A bullet hit Thusha in the chest and passed through the seventh vertebra of her spine, leaving her wheelchair-bound for life.

Thusha's mother Sharmila Kamaleswaran wept as extracts from her victim impact statement were read to the court by junior prosecutor Michelle Nelson. The mother of three said the tragedy was "unbearable" for her family, and described the shock of seeing her daughter on a hospital bed, saying: "Seeing Thusha took my heart away."

She said her daughter's dreams of becoming a singer and dancer had been shattered.

Thusha is due to be discharged from hospital next week, and her doctor at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Allison Graham, said her condition is not expected to improve.

Grant, Kolawole and McCalla were looking for a rival gang member when Grant mindlessly opened fire into the Stockwell Food and Wine shop. Shopper Roshan Selvakumar was shot in the face in the attack, and has been left with bullet fragments permanently lodged in his head.

The trio were found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Selvakumar and of attempted murder of their intended victim Roshaun Bryan.

Jurors were told that Grant would have been able to see Thusha as he fired his second shot. Kolawole, 19, of Kennington, south-east London; McCalla, 20, of Streatham, south London; and Grant, 21, of Camberwell, south-east London, will be sentenced on April 19.