Men accused of possessing baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire walk free from court

Publish date: 2024-06-25
Shaban Brika admitted possessing offensive weapons and was jailed for 20 months

Shaban Brika admitted possessing offensive weapons and was jailed for 20 months

Two men accused of possessing clubs wrapped in barbed wire walked free after two police officers failed to attend court because they were babysitting.

Shaban Brika, 45, his son Mohammed, 21, and Albert Cajka, 28, were arrested after police found three baseball bats covered in barbed wire and two wooden clubs embedded with lumps of concrete and nails in the back of their car in Coventry.

The character Negan, played by actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, wields a similar barbwire-wrapped bat called 'Lucille' in TV series The Walking Dead. 

But Mohammed and Cajka, who denied the charges, avoided jail when the case was dropped after two police officers failed to turn up to court to give evidence. 

One said he was a single parent and his child had chicken pox, while the other said it was 'not convenient' because his wife, also a police officer, was giving evidence in a murder trial and they had no other childcare arrangements.

A further charge against all three of possessing a Super Soaker water pistol filled with diluted hydrochloric acid was also dropped because police failed to get it analysed.

Shaban Brika, of no fixed address, admitted possessing offensive weapons at Warwick Crown Court and was jailed for 20 months yesterday. 

Police found three baseball bats heavily wrapped with barbed wire and two wooden poles with nail-embedded lumps of concrete on the ends and also wrapped in barbed wire

Police found three baseball bats heavily wrapped with barbed wire and two wooden poles with nail-embedded lumps of concrete on the ends and also wrapped in barbed wire

The court heard police stopped Brika's grey VW Sharan car in the Radford area of Coventry at 7.30pm on December 9 last year.

When officers searched the car they discovered the weapons - similar to those seen on the American television show 'The Walking Dead', on the back seat and arrested Brika, his son and Cajka.

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Judge Sylvia de Bertodano said: 'These are very, very unpleasant weapons, but if you haven't got the evidence, you haven't got the evidence.'

Jailing Brika, the judge said: 'The police came out on a Sunday evening to a residential street and found you driving a VW which had work items in it, but which also had five very seriously unpleasant weapons.

'There were three baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire and two poles wrapped in barbed wire with nails protruding from the ends.

When the police stopped a car in the Radford area of Coventry they discovered a stash of what a judge described as 'seriously unpleasant' Medieval-looking weapons in the back - but two of the men have now avoided jail

When the police stopped a car in the Radford area of Coventry they discovered a stash of what a judge described as 'seriously unpleasant' Medieval-looking weapons in the back - but two of the men have now avoided jail 

'They are very nasty weapons indeed. They are made to inflict really serious injuries.

'You knew full-well they were in the car. I accept you may not have put them there, but you were driving them about.

'These are highly dangerous weapons. They are quite medieval. There is a risk of serious disorder when these sorts of weapons in that quantity are in a car with three adult males in a residential street.

'Of course they were not taken out, but this is about risk.'

Prosecutor Ian Windridge said that among the workmen's tools in the back of the estate car they found the 'particularly awesome' weapons and the water pistol.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan holds a baseball bat while playing Negan in TV's The Walking Dead

Explaining why the prosecution had dropped the acid charge against Brika, Mr Windridge said 'the sample is still sitting in the secure safe at the police station.'

Shaban Brika's DNA was found on the bats but he claimed the water pistol contained a brick cleaning solution he was intending to use for a job.

James Riley, defending, said: 'The defendant's case is that he's a builder, and the Super Soaker had brick-cleaner in it, and he was going to a job.

'The two people who had put the weapons in the vehicle, he was taking them to the warehouse for.' 

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