Jeremiah Dill was sentenced to 35 years in jail last night after he was convicted of the murder of a 34-year-old man as he left a sports club.

Dill was jailed for 25 years for the shooting of Perry Puckerin and will also serve ten years for the use of a firearm, with the sentences to run consecutively.

Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said there were no winners in the case, only two families who had lost sons.

He said: “A family lost a son and father and felt the pain when Mr Puckerin was murdered.

“Today, a family lose a son and feel the pain when the defendant is sentenced.”

Dill maintained his innocence and told the court: “I didn’t commit the crime.”

But Nicole Smith, for the prosecution, said the killing was “a planned execution” and Dill followed an order from the Parkside gang without hesitation in a feud with rivals 42.

Ms Smith said: “There was no specific target. Just anyone from 42. The attack showed a reckless disregard for life.”

The murder happened at Hamilton Parish Workman’s Club on January 3, 2010.

Prosecutors earlier alleged that Dill, 35, shot Mr Puckerin as part of a feud between the two Pembroke gangs. One witness, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the court that she recognised Dill as the gunman, despite his face being hidden by his jacket.

Another witness said he heard the late Prince Edness, the “ringleader” of Parkside, organise the murder and that Dill later bragged about the killing.

The jury also heard statements from several witnesses at the bar on the night of the shooting and watched CCTV footage of the gunman waiting outside as the club closed for the night.

The jury handed in a verdict after more than five hours’

deliberation.

The court heard Mr Puckerin had been drinking at the club with friends identified as members of the 42 gang.

He suffered two gunshot wounds to the left side of his body in the attack. The witness who identified Dill left the club just before Mr Puckerin

appeared in the doorway.

She told the jury she recognised the gunman’s face, despite his camouflage.

She said she knew who it was from his eyes, as well as his voice.

Mr Dill did not take the stand during the eight-day trial and called no witnesses in his defence.

But Craig Attridge, his lawyer, challenged the reliability of both witnesses.

The defence argued that the witness who identified Dill as the gunman only had a glimpse of his eyes and wanted someone to be held accountable for the killing.

He accused the witness who claimed to have overheard the murder plot of making up a story to save his own skin because he had been arrested for shoplifting while on probation.

Carrington Mahoney, for the prosecution, argued that the identification of Dill as the gunman by a witness was sufficient on its own to secure a conviction.

The verdict brought an end to one of the island’s longest-standing unsolved murders.

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