An innocent mother-of-nine and her nephew were shot dead during a botched revenge attack meant in retribution for a ‘trophy’ image shared on Snapchat, a court heard. 

Obina Ezeoke, 28, allegedly crept into a family home and shot 21-year-old student Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo in the back of his head while he slept in bed as part of a ‘vendetta of violence’.

He then blasted the victim’s aunt Annie Besala Ekofo, 53, in the chest when she came out of her bedroom dressed only in her underwear in the early hours of September, 15, 2016, jurors heard.

Neither Bervil nor Annie were the intended targets, the Old Bailey was told.

The accused double killer is facing his fourth retrial for two counts of murder.

Ezeoke insists he was on the Grahame Park Estate, Edgware, on the night of the killings at the flat in Elmshurst Crescent, East Finchley.

The estate is said to have been the backdrop of a longstanding feud between a group involved with Ms Ekofo’s son Ryan Efey, 22, and another, linked to Ezeoke.

Prosecutor Mark Heywood told jurors that the accused killer had travelled to Elmshurst Crescent in search of Mr Efey but shot his mother and cousin instead.

The accused killer was found by police ‘left for dead’ with a broken eye socket during an altercation on February, 9, 2014 connected to the rivalry, it was said.

A ‘trophy’ photograph which was taken by his attackers and shared widely on the social media platform Snapchat was later allegedly found on the phone of Kaydean Efey, Ryan’s older brother.

Summing up the prosecution case, Mr Heywood said today: ‘On February 9 2014, Mr Ezeoke was attacked, seriously attacked, as were those two who were with him. This was no half baked fight, someone went for him in a serious way.

‘A photograph was taken to humiliate him and then it was posted and circulated, and one of the phones which received it was that of Kaydean Efey.

‘That trophy relating to Ezeoke remained on the handset. His eye socket was broken.’

The prosecutor urged jurors to see Ezeoke as somebody willing to ‘escalate’ the shared hostility in such a deadly way.

Mr Heywood added: ‘It really boils down doesn’t it to a very small group of people.

‘It’s common ground that this arises from Grahame Park estate, from a history of antagonism, violence between people there and the Efey family.

‘That’s agreed. There’s no doubt that that’s what lies behind all this. The question is who fits into the category of someone who could escalate and take it to this degree?’

Ezeoke, of no fixed address, denies two counts of murder. The trial continues.

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