A YOUNG mother who died in a hail of machine-gun fire while celebrating her 24th birthday was an innocent victim caught in an outbreak of “violent antagonism” against a group of men from South Kilburn, a court heard yesterday (Wednesday).

The attack that killed Sabrina Moss was “as vicious and deadly as it was cowardly”, the Old Bailey was told.

The nursery worker, who had a four-year-old son, was standing outside Woody Grill takeaway, in Kilburn High Road, on August 24 last year after a night out with friends when a group of men allegedly carrying a MAC-10 submachine gun and a sawn-off shotgun opened fire at “point-blank range”, the jury heard.

She died shortly afterwards of a fatal chest wound.

Two men from South Kilburn, Edson Da Silva and Mahad Ahmed, who were standing nearby, were injured but survived.

Miss Moss’s friend Sabrina Gachette, 24, was also injured but survived after “deeply invasive surgery”.

Martell Warren, 22, of Kensal Green, Hassan Hussain, 29, of Willesden Green, and Yassin James, 19, of Wembley, are charged with the murder of Miss Moss, three counts of attempted murder and possession of two firearms.

On the trial’s first day yesterday (Wednesday), prosecutor Mark Heywood QC told the court that the attack had been carefully planned and carried out by the accused because they “had a violent antagonism with a group of people from South Kilburn”.

“The reason for that was not clear but it was serious,” he said. “It was deep-seated, so deep-seated that it was enough to occupy their activities for most of the darkness hours.”

Over three-and-a-half hours they carried out “surveillance” on their intended victims, he said, before deciding to strike.

On one side of the road were Miss Moss and three girlfriends who had bought food following an evening at the Love and Liquor nightclub nearby. “On the other side of the road, hoods over their heads, likely hands in gloves, faces shrouded, were two killers,” Mr Heywood claimed.

“They had selected their weapons not just because they fell to hand. Each one is designed to kill or to maim,” he told the jury.

“They knew very well who their targets were and where they were. When they judged that they could they ran out and fired at point-blank range.”

Both barrels of the sawn-off shotgun were fired, specially filled with heavy bullets designed to cause maximum damage, Mr Heywood claimed, and the machine gun was sprayed over the victims two to three times.

“When the noise and the smoke drifted away two young women lay on the pavement. One survived after deeply invasive surgery, the other couldn’t even be saved by that,” Mr Heywood said.

He added: “The August bank holiday last year will live forever in the memory of some and that is exactly by design, the design of these defendants, those who carried out the crimes at the heart of this case. What they did was intended to send a message to those in their world, that they were not to be trifled with.”

All three defendants are also jointly charged alongside Simon Baptiste, 29, of Rondu Road, West Hampstead, with conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm against an unnamed group of individuals between August 22 and August 25.

The court was told that the group used Baptiste’s house to meet in the hours running up to the murder.

The trial continues.