Nigerian, others face trial in UK over girl’s shooting

A 19-year-old Nigerian, Kazeem Kolawole, and two others are facing trial in London over the shooting of a girl, who is now paralysed waist down
One moment, five-year-old Thusha Kamaleswaran was “happily playing” in a south London shop.
The next, she was shot in the chest and went into cardiac arrest twice - saved only by the medics who performed “invasive surgery” on her as she lay bleeding on the shop floor.
But Thusha was left permanently paralysed after the shooting at Stockwell Food and Wine in south London last March, a court heard.
A jury was on Tuesday shown CCTV footage of the attack for which a 19-year-old Nigerian, Kazeem Kolawole, Anthony McCalla, 19, and Nathaniel Grant, 21, from south London are being tried.
Prosecutor Edward Brown QC warned the jury that they might find the CCTV footage from inside Stockwell Food and Wine disturbing.
The jury was also shown a photograph of the cardigan that Thusha was wearing that day, bloodstained and with bullet damage.
She was hit by the second shot that was fired, the court heard. Mr Roshan Selvakumar, a shopper, was hit by the first shot, fired seven seconds earlier.
Mr Brown told the court: “He remembers trying to shut the door on the gunman and then felt a blow to his face, and a crunching sensation inside his head.
“He didn’t know he had been hit by a bullet. He thought perhaps it was a bottle.”
The scene inside the shop was “frantic”, with Mr Selvakumar’s blood dripping on the floor as he retreated and Thusha being picked up and taken to the back, Mr Brown said.
Her heart stopped in the shop and surgery had to be performed at the scene to save her. She went into cardiac arrest again in hospital, and once more emergency surgery saved her life.
The bullet had passed through her chest and through the seventh vertebra of her spine, leaving her permanently in a wheelchair.
“She remains paralysed throughout much of her body. This is a permanent condition. She will never walk again,” prosecutor Edward Brown, QC, told London’s Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey.
They were allegedly chasing someone they thought was a rival gang member into the store, The Guardian reported.
They fired two shots through the shop’s open door, first hitting Selvakumar, 35, in the face and then Thusha in her chest.
Mr Selvakumar was seriously injured and the bullet remains in his head. If the wound was centimetres to one side he would have died, jurors were told.
Thusha went into cardiac arrest within minutes of the bullet hitting her, Mr Brown said.
Paramedics performed surgery on her, restarting her heart.