A FEUD between two families ended up with one side being fired at with a shotgun, a jury has been told.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Rashid Khan, 36, was the man who fired the shot through the front window of a house in Richmond Hill Street, Accrington, where victim Zafoor Alam was sat with two other people.

Khan, of Hamer Avenue, Rawtenstall, has already pleaded guilty to a single count of using a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

But prosecutor Keith Sutton said it is the Crown’s case Khan committed the offence under the direction of Wasim Ali and therefore as a joint enterprise.

Opening the case against Ali, Mr Sutton said: “The main event here is something that happened on June 28, last year. Shortly before midnight the firearm was discharged at a house in Richmond Hill Street, Accrington. It was fired at the front window of the house from outside, with the pellet from the shotgun going inside the house.

“The prosecution case is the gun was fired by Mr Khan taking on the instructions of Mr Ali. This shooting took place against a background of incidents that had occurred in a feud between members of Mr Ali’s family and people associated with them and associates of a family called Alam. Zafoor Alam was one of the people in the room when the shot was fired through the window.”

Mr Sutton said the feud dated back to February 2016 when an allegation was made that a car was directly driven at Mr Alam’s wife by Ali and a second man. That case was set to go to trial at Preston Crown Court but was dropped by the CPS before it went before a jury.

Mr Sutton said the CPS sent a letter to the relevant law firms confirming that the case against their clients had been dropped and a photograph of that document was found on Khan’s phone. The prosecutor said tensions between the two families were raised three days before the shooting when police were called to a disturbance in Richmond Hill Street allegedly involving members of the Ali and Alam families.

The jury was told that following the confrontation Ali changed the phone handset and number he was using. He had been using an i-Phone 5 and when that was seized by the police Ali allegedly refused to give them the passcode for it. The prosecution allege that Ali stopped using the i-Phone 5 on June 26, when he began using an i-Phone 7, and he only resumed using it on July 3 with a different number.

When police did manage to inspect his phone they found it had been used on June 17 to search for Mr Alam’s address and it contained photos of the Alam family, the prosecutor said.

The court heard that at 4pm on the day of the shooting Khan had made contact with a man in Blackburn who was selling a Nissan Primera on Gumtree. He rang him again later in the day and agreed to buy the vehicle for £300. Khan then travelled to Blackburn to pay for the Primera but he didn’t take it away immediately because he said he needed to sort out insurance for it.

During that period Ali’s black Vauxhall Corsa was picked up by automatic number plate recognition cameras travelling from Oswaldtwistle to Manchester. That was also supported by Ali’s phone number being picked up by phone masts in the area.

Mr Sutton said while the shooting was taking place, Ali was in the cinema at the Trafford Centre. Khan did eventually return to pick up the Primera in a Mercedes Sprinter van at around 10.55pm.

Mr Sutton said Ali rang Mr Khan at 11.05pm, before Khan drove to Rawtenstall. On the way to Accrington the Primera is seen to stop for a short time in an alleyway where Mr Sutton said the number plates were removed.