Firearms gang sentencing adjourned because dock was "too hot"
Six people were due to be sentenced at Harrow Crown Court - but it's now been pushed back to October
The sentencing of six people for a firearms conspiracy could not go ahead at Harrow Crown Court today (Fri 26 June) because the dock was too hot.
The defendants, who included one of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky’s killers Faizal Razzaq, were due to learn their fates at the newly refurbished court.
But the hearing had to be postponed because the temperature could not be brought down enough for them to sit in the dock.
Security staff said they could not put a fan in the dock, and the hearing could not start until the temperature dropped below 26C.
The building, which reopened this year, after a £26 million safety overhaul, has air conditioning but this was not sufficient to cool the dock.
Judge Hannah Kinch said: “The temperature will need to be monitored and if it goes above 26C the defendants will have to be taken down again.
“I don’t see how we can have a hearing while we are stopping and starting.
“I also think it would be deeply unfair to have defendants who are facing serious sentences kept in difficult conditions in the dock.”
At midday the judge confirmed the hearing could not go ahead as the dock had not cooled down. It was adjourned until October.
Faisal Razzaq, Robert Dorey, Ricky Dorey, Abdul Saleh, Patrick Loughnane and Tammy Rigg were due to be sentenced for their parts in a firearms conspiracy which supplied weapons to gangs across London
They are six members of a group who helped to supply or possess converted blank firearms. Faisal Razzaq was convicted in 2005 of the manslaughter of PC Sharon Beshenivsky.