Train terror gang named

The members of the notorious gang of teenage robbers who brought terror to commuters have had their identities released.

The five youngsters are beginning custodial sentences totalling 11 years for a series of frightening train robberies.

The names and photographs of the gang are published for the first time after a judge at Inner London Crown Court took the unusual step of allowing their names to be released as a deterrent to others.

They included 15-year-old Danny Preddie, a member of the same street gang as the teenagers who stood trial for the murder of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor.

Preddie and four other youths were jailed for a series of attacks on trains in southeast London. The robbers targeted commuters travelling home alone at night, taking cash, mobile phones, watches and personal CD players.

The detective who led the investigation into their activities compared them to a "pack of wolves" who would prey on vulnerable victims.

Detective Constable Terry Hill, of the British Transport Police robbery squad, said: "They would select their victims and hunt like a pack. They targeted not only commuters but people in the vicinity of railway stations on the London Bridge to Sydenham line.

"There were 11 victims who were subjected to violence, increasing each time to an eventual threat of stabbing a young man who had what he believed was the point of a knife placed in his stomach." Preddie, Ebbi Apineri, 17, Delroy Corrodus, 16, Daniel Hargreaves, 17, and Mustafa Warsama, 15, had all denied charges of conspiracy to rob and robbery between 7 and 21 February last year.

A jury found them guilty of both charges at Inner London Crown Court after a trial last month. British Transport Police believe the gang may have carried out up to 11 robberies before their crimewave came to an end after an attack on 21 February. Late that evening all five threatened a commuter as he travelled between Queens Road and East Dulwich stations.

The passenger told police one of the men pushed an object into his stomach and said, 'You know what this is don't you?'

All five had criminal records. One detective said: "They have no respect for authority."

Preddie, who lives with his mother in Camberwell, appeared at the Old Bailey in 2000 accused of a sex attack on two girls with the two brothers who were ultimately cleared of the Damilola murder.

All three walked free after a judge said the case should not have been sent to the Old Bailey. Preddie was also given a six-month supervision order for racially aggravated common assault in December

2000. In October he was sentenced to four months' trainingand detention for his part in a burglary with another teenager cleared of murdering Damilola.

Warsama, the leader of the gang who is of Somalian origin, was sentenced to a 12-month supervision and three-month curfew order in April after admitting attempted burglary. During the trial he appeared in court and held a plastic gun lighter to the head of the dock officer.

Preddie and Warsama, of Peckham, were each sentenced to three years in a young offenders' institution.

Corrodus, of Talfourd Place children's home, Peckham, was sent to a young offenders' institution for two-and-a-half years. Hargreaves, of Peckham, was sentenced to a 12-month detention and training order. Apineri, who also lived at the children's home, was sentenced to an 18-month training and detention order.