Single gunshot killed Hells Angel - 24th Nov 2008 2:46pm
NOT LOCAL NEWS BUT STILL BAD NEWS
A Hells Angel murdered on a motorway as he rode back from a motorcycle festival was killed by a single gunshot to the head, a postmortem examination revealed today.
The unnamed victim, thought to be in his 30s, was shot in broad daylight on the M40 in Warwickshire yesterday afternoon.
He had been visiting the Bulldog Bash, which bills itself as Europe's largest biker festival, at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford.
Warwickshire police said tonight they believed the fatal shot had been fired from a pistol.
Police had completely closed the motorway in both directions to conduct fingertip searches at the murder scene, on the southbound carriageway between junctions 13 and 12 near Leamington Spa. It reopened earlier this afternoon.
Police said the man had been riding with two friends, who were Polish, according to the BBC. Officers have yet to give details of the model of motorcycle he was riding but they have appealed for information about a green Rover 620 car reported by witnesses as driving close to the motorcyclist.
Detective Superintendent Ken Lawrence, who is leading the investigation, said there were many motorcyclists on the road at the time after the four-day Bulldog Bash ended.
He said detectives were scouring CCTV footage from cameras monitoring the motorway, and he appealed to any witnesses who saw the incident or the car travelling northbound along the A46 towards the M40.
Mr Lawrence said police were investigating the possibility that the victim was not British but had lived in the UK for some time. He also said detectives were examining a similar incident six years ago, in which three bikers were shot at on the M40 as they returned from the Bulldog Bash.
"There are similarities but that doesn't mean necessarily that they are linked," Mr Lawrence said.
At the time of the previous shooting police said it was an "indiscriminate" attack. The bikers, from Canada and France, were travelling in the inside lane towards Oxford when they were shot at from a car in the middle lane. A 31-year-old man was hit in the right leg and taken to hospital for treatment.
Detectives investigating yesterday's murder have ruled out a road rage attack.
The Bulldog Bash attracts around 30,000 motorcyclists and music fans from across Europe. This year Status Quo headlined the event. The organiser, a 56-year-old Hells Angel calling himself Bilbo, told reporters: "I knew the lad. He was 33 years old and was a Hells Angel ... you couldn't wish to meet a better person."
Bilbo, a member of the Wessex Hells Angels chapter for 30 years, refused to speculate on the cause of the killing. "It's dangerous to guess why [this happened]," he said.
"This year was a massive event and it went off virtually trouble-free. We had an amazing weekend and then this happened and it has totally shaken everybody. It's a massive loss to the biker community as a whole."
i wouldn like to be in the guys shoes wen the rest of the hells angels get hold of him
A Hells Angel murdered on a motorway as he rode back from a motorcycle festival was killed by a single gunshot to the head, a postmortem examination revealed today.
The unnamed victim, thought to be in his 30s, was shot in broad daylight on the M40 in Warwickshire yesterday afternoon.
He had been visiting the Bulldog Bash, which bills itself as Europe's largest biker festival, at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford.
Warwickshire police said tonight they believed the fatal shot had been fired from a pistol.
Police had completely closed the motorway in both directions to conduct fingertip searches at the murder scene, on the southbound carriageway between junctions 13 and 12 near Leamington Spa. It reopened earlier this afternoon.
Police said the man had been riding with two friends, who were Polish, according to the BBC. Officers have yet to give details of the model of motorcycle he was riding but they have appealed for information about a green Rover 620 car reported by witnesses as driving close to the motorcyclist.
Detective Superintendent Ken Lawrence, who is leading the investigation, said there were many motorcyclists on the road at the time after the four-day Bulldog Bash ended.
He said detectives were scouring CCTV footage from cameras monitoring the motorway, and he appealed to any witnesses who saw the incident or the car travelling northbound along the A46 towards the M40.
Mr Lawrence said police were investigating the possibility that the victim was not British but had lived in the UK for some time. He also said detectives were examining a similar incident six years ago, in which three bikers were shot at on the M40 as they returned from the Bulldog Bash.
"There are similarities but that doesn't mean necessarily that they are linked," Mr Lawrence said.
At the time of the previous shooting police said it was an "indiscriminate" attack. The bikers, from Canada and France, were travelling in the inside lane towards Oxford when they were shot at from a car in the middle lane. A 31-year-old man was hit in the right leg and taken to hospital for treatment.
Detectives investigating yesterday's murder have ruled out a road rage attack.
The Bulldog Bash attracts around 30,000 motorcyclists and music fans from across Europe. This year Status Quo headlined the event. The organiser, a 56-year-old Hells Angel calling himself Bilbo, told reporters: "I knew the lad. He was 33 years old and was a Hells Angel ... you couldn't wish to meet a better person."
Bilbo, a member of the Wessex Hells Angels chapter for 30 years, refused to speculate on the cause of the killing. "It's dangerous to guess why [this happened]," he said.
"This year was a massive event and it went off virtually trouble-free. We had an amazing weekend and then this happened and it has totally shaken everybody. It's a massive loss to the biker community as a whole."
i wouldn like to be in the guys shoes wen the rest of the hells angels get hold of him
