A black adidas sneaker left behind at the scene of a public drive-by shooting in Somerset led Anwar Muhammad to be dubbed the “Cinderella of Crime” at his trial 13 years ago.

Bloodstains on the size 11 left-foot shoe, and on a matching right-foot sneaker found stashed at a compound shortly after the August 2010 crime, were said by a DNA expert witness to match blood samples from the shooting victim, 19-year-old Shantoine Prinston Burrows.

Mr Muhammad’s DNA was also found on the shoes, according to the forensic expert.

Prosecutor Carrington Mahoney told the Supreme Court jury: “What a coincidence.

“Do you remember the story about Cinderella and the shoe? Well, here we have the Cinderella of Crime. He thought he got away, but the shoe was there to link him” to the crime.

Mr Muhammad, 22, denied any involvement in the gun attack, but admitted in court that the sneakers could be an old pair of his.

The jury found him guilty of attempted murder and using a firearm to commit attempted murder. He was jailed for 25 years, with a ten-year minimum term before he could be considered for parole.

Yesterday, with Mr Muhammad now aged 36, his convictions were formally overturned by the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the DNA evidence presented at his trial could not be relied upon.

His case was reopened as part of a review launched in the wake of the quashing last year of the murder and attempted murder convictions of Julian Washington — also after a decade behind bars, and also because of flawed DNA evidence.

That review of hundreds of criminal cases involving DNA evidence from forensics expert Candy Zuleger, of Florida-based Trinity DNA Solutions, continues.

During Mr Muhammad’s 2012 trial, the court heard that Mr Burrows was shot in the left thigh and left index finger on Middle Road, near its junction with Woodlawn Road, in Sandys, on August 23, 2010, before horrified onlookers.

Eyewitnesses said the gunman kept shooting the teenager even as he tried to crawl away from the attack near Maximart.

Between four and ten bullets were fired in total from a 9mm Glock that police later described as being used in multiple gang-related shootings.

“Clearly the shooter intended to kill. It was not to scare or to injure. It was a clear attempt to kill Prinston Burrows that day,” Mr Mahoney told the jury.

The trial heard Mr Burrows wrestled the gunman off the bike and grabbed the gun from him before the shooter and his getaway driver rode off. The victim was later flown overseas for hospital treatment.

Acting on a tip-off, police went to a compound owned by Mr Muhammad’s father at Industrial Park Road, Southampton, less than hour after the shooting, the court heard.

There, they found a white sleeveless vest top, a black shirt and the right foot of a pair of adidas sneakers, which matched a left-footed adidas sneaker found on the road at the crime scene.

Mr Muhammad, a barber, was arrested at his Somerset shop in April 2011 and charged with attempted murder and using a firearm to commit an indictable offence.

He was remanded in custody, later entering not-guilty pleas to both charges.

Mr Mahoney alleged at the trial that the defendant was a member of the Somerset-based MOB gang and that he opened fire on Mr Burrows, who was linked to the rival White Hill Crew, while riding as a pillion passenger on a motorcycle.

Mr Muhammad insisted he was not a gang member, but a “legitimate businessman” trying to make money to help out his mother. He said his girlfriend was expecting his first child.

He admitted the clothes found by police at the Southampton compound were his and that he wore them on the day of the shooting. However, he said they got wet in the rain and he dropped them off for a friend’s mother to wash.

He claimed in court that someone else may have put them on and carried out the shooting.

Mr Muhammad’s defence lawyer, Marc Daniels, questioned the forensic evidence, arguing that the DNA expert could not limit the DNA profiles she found to only the victim or the accused man, and could not offer assistance as to how or when the DNA got on to the clothes.

It was not enough to convince jurors, who convicted Mr Muhammad on both counts.

He later unsuccessfully appealed his conviction, but did not dispute the DNA evidence.

The 2014 Court of Appeal judgment found that some evidence was improperly admitted at his trial, but said the case against Mr Muhammad was, in any case, “overwhelming”.

Appeal judge Sir Anthony Evans wrote: “One of a pair of sneakers that he had worn and that he admitted was his was found at the scene. The matching sneaker also with his DNA was found with other clothing that he wore on the afternoon in question, all stained with the complainant’s blood.

“The appellant’s explanation that someone else must have taken the clothing and sneakers, worn them whilst carrying out the attack and then returned them to where the appellant left them, was unbelievable.”

It would take another ten years for the DNA evidence in Mr Muhammad’s case to be looked at again.

After Mr Washington’s conviction was quashed at the Privy Council in London in May 2024, Cindy Clarke, the Director of Public Prosecutions, launched a review of more than 200 cases that could be similarly affected.

Mr Muhammad’s convictions are the first to be overturned as a result. He is understood to have left Westgate some time ago, after serving the minimum term behind bars.

Mr Burrows was himself jailed for 35 years in 2017 for the gun murder of Rickai Swan at Southampton Rangers Sports Club.

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