AARON Gittins has been found guilty of carrying out a shooting in a residential street in Pinehurst in January.

After more than five hours of deliberations, the jury of eight women and four men returned a majority verdict that the 21-year-old was guilty of wounding with intent.

Gittins, of Kingswood Avenue, showed no emotion and looked straight ahead as he stood in the dock.

He will be sentenced before Christmas along with his co-accused, who all pleaded guilty on the day the trial was due to begin.

Police praised members of the public who gave evidence to officers investigating the incident and in court, some of whom asked for their identities to be protected, saying the case might not have been successful had they not done so.

Detective Chief Inspector Sean Memory said: “Gun crime in Wiltshire is generally very rare and this verdict sends out a very strong message to those who are prepared to use weapons that neither the police nor the public of Swindon will tolerate gun crime.

“I am particularly grateful to those members of the public who have supported this investigation; without them this result wouldn’t have been possible.”

During the two-week trial, the jury heard that Gittins carried out the January 16 attack as revenge for his BMW being vandalised by a group of young men he had been having an ongoing dispute with.

It can also be reported for the first time that one of those men, Jade Brewington, had been due to give evidence during the trial but fled to Tunisia. He was arrested on Sunday while collecting his baggage at the airport.

But it was the evidence of a neighbour who overheard a phone conversation Gittins had in the street after discovering the damage to his car at about 7pm that proved crucial.

He said: “Come and get me quick, I know who it is, I’m going to f***ing do them.”

That, coupled with mobile phone records showing a flurry of calls and texts between him, a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named and Karvin Dhillon, 22, of Stratton-St-Margaret, along with cell site analysis showing Gittin’s phone moving to crucial locations around Swindon shortly afterwards, sealed his fate.

What Gittins had done was to ‘rally his troops’ to set up a ‘honeytrap’ using 19-year-old Jade Turley, also of Stratton-St-Margaret, who was the ex-girlfriend of one of the rival group, Francis Egerton.

She arranged to meet him in Spruce Court but then made excuses to leave and called Dhillon shortly before 11pm to let him know the target was in place and Gittins and the 16-year-old could carry out their revenge.

They shot at the car three times using a 9mm pistol and one of the bullets hit Mr Egerton’s friend Nevian Monro as he sat in the car with him.

The jury saw CCTV from near the scene of the shooting showing Gittins and the 16-year-old arriving in Gittins’ mother’s red Vauxhall Corsa and running along a footpath and back again at the relevant time.

But despite Gittins’ mother, Rachel, ex-girlfriend Megan Irving, and family friend Marion Smith insisting his phone had been in their possession on the night in question, the jury did not believe them.

Gittins will be sentenced with the 16-year-old, Dhillon and Turley later this month.

THE jury in the trial heard that the shooting was part of a long running feud between a group of rival youths.

The four defendants, Aaron Gittins, Jade Turley, Karvin Dhillon and a 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all appeared at Bristol Crown for the first day of the trial on November 22.

However Turley and Dhillon both pleaded guily to conspiracy to cause actual bodily harm against Francis Egerton before the trial started and the 16-year-old pleaded guilty to wounding with intent, the same charge faced by Gittins.

The incident took place on January 16 and Mr Egerton was shot at three times with a 9mm pistol, but one of the bullets hit his friend Nevian Monro in the shoulder, another hit the headrest in the car they were in, while the third landed somewhere outside the vehicle.

During the trial, prosecutor Ian Lawrie said that while they may never know whether it was Gittins or the 16-year-old who actually pulled the trigger it did not matter as the two were acting in tandem.