A driver who used his car “as a weapon” to hunt down and ram a man on an electric off-road bike inBirminghamhas been jailed for life for murder.
Abdirahman Ibrahim, 21, left Liam Jones to die on the roadside after hitting him twice with his Seat Leon in the Yardley area on 1 August 2023, Birmingham crown court was told.
Jones, 22, was “showboating” with a friend, Tayzhon Johnson, when Ibrahim chased them unprovoked and knocked the victim off his bike and into a concrete post, the court heard.
Jones, described as the “spark” of his family, died at the scene after paramedics tried to save him.
Judge Smith KC told the defendant he had used the car as a “weapon” and pursued Jones and Johnson “in a determined and deliberate way”.
“You became aware of Liam Jones and Tayzhon Johnson as you entered the Coventry Road and you changed your direction to follow them.”
He added: “There is no evidence that Mr Jones or Mr Johnson ever participated in racing with your car or did anything to encourage you to interact with them.”
The judge said the two men had realised they were being followed and went down a one-way street in an attempt to get away from the car, but Ibrahim drove at speed along another nearby road to catch them.
Smith added: “Your actions in the immediate aftermath of this deliberate collision were governed by a selfish desire to escape from the scene and involved no care for Mr Jones.”
Ibrahim’s brother, Abdullahi Ibrahim, pleaded guilty to assisting an offender and was jailed for two years and 10 months, for efforts to hide the vehicle in the hours after the murder.
Abdirahman Ibrahim was found guilty of Jones’s murder in February after a retrial, having admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter, claiming the fatal collision was an accident after a race.
CCTV footage showed to the court established that less than 10 minutes before the collision, Jones had performed a “stand-up wheelie” near the car.
In a victim personal statement, Jones’s sister Kelly Jones said he had five siblings and was a “loved son, brother, uncle and friend to many”.
She said he should have been “living his life to the max, enjoying every day, being carefree, having a laugh and making memories”.
“But that was all taken away from him in the worst possible way. I don’t think that any of us will ever get over the fact that we never got to say goodbye to Liam,” she said.
“We were called to the roadside where his lifeless body lay. We had to stand by and watch the emergency services try and do all they could to save his life.”
She added: “Every day is a struggle without Liam. Our lives have been shattered into pieces.
“Liam was the spark of our family. He had brilliant banter and would always just make us laugh. He was the fun and bubbly one.”