The ‘Bloods’ are, in fact, one of the most infamous gangs in London. At the height of their notoriety five years ago, they targeted the Underground, producing a ‘good mugging’ guide for their members

On April 12 last year, in the early hours, Hyacinth Carty received a call on her mobile phone. It was the police, and it was about her son.

He was in trouble. Serious trouble. A young woman had been shot dead - executed - on a doorstep in Hackney, East London.

The hooded assassin had been captured on CCTV pulling a sawn-off shotgun from his rucksack before ringing the doorbell and opening fire at point-blank range.


Santre Sanchez Gayle (left) is believed to be Britain's youngest contract killer at 15 years old. His half-brother Lloywen Carty (right) killed a reveller at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2004 for 'disrespecting him'.

The assassin, detectives believed, was Hyacinth’s 15-year-old son, Santre Sanchez Gayle (the surname he takes from his estranged father).

According to their inquiries, he had carried out the ‘hit’ for £200 - money he would later use to buy a Dolce & Gabbana beanie hat.


Hyacinth Carty was informed that Santre had been arrested on suspicion of murder. They asked her to come to the police station where the teenager was about to be interviewed under caution. Children under 16 cannot be interviewed without an ‘appropriate adult’ being present.

Hyacinth refused to go. She said she was too ‘tired’. That was the precise word she used, a senior officer involved in the investigation told the Mail - a response that was almost as shocking, in its own way, as the crime itself.

When she did eventually contact the police again, it was to complain that her front door had been kicked down when armed officers arrested her son. (Hyacinth had been at another address when they came for him.)




Brutal: CCTV showing 15-year-old hitman Santre Sanchez Gayle, now 16, as he fires a shotgun and shoots dead Gulistan at point-blank range as she answers a knock on the door

For the truth is, Carty was a mother only in a biological sense. Had she been anything more than that, then maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t be reading this article.

Santre Sanchez Gayle is now serving 20 years following his conviction for murder at the Old Bailey last month. He is believed to be Britain’s youngest contract killer.

That’s only part of the story, though. For in 2004, Gayle’s half-brother Lloywen Carty - Hyacinth Carty’s eldest son from a previous relationship - also stood in the dock at the Old Bailey, as he was convicted of gunning down a reveller at the Notting Hill Carnival.

Carty was 23 at the time. The reason his victim had to die? He was perceived to have ‘disrespected him’.

One mother. Two sons who became killers. But it doesn’t end there: a cousin of Carty and Gayle, Donnel Carty, is also a convicted murderer.

Santre Gayle’s family - who are of Jamaican descent - live in Kensal Green in the London Borough of Brent. To the south, Kensington and Chelsea, to the east, Westminster. But Gayle and his sociopathic peers existed in a parallel universe where the saying ‘life is cheap’ is more than just a turn of phrase.

We encountered a chilling illustration of this outside the terrace house of the accomplice who recruited Gayle to kill a young mother for cash.


Gulistan Subasi was shot dead at point-blank range by Gayle the night before her son's birthday

Emerging from the front door was a man in his mid-20s with a tattoo of two teardrops on his neck. In this nihilistic sub-culture, a teardrop tattoo often signifies that the bearer has killed or spent time in prison. The ‘tears’ are a sick representation of the grief of a victim’s loved ones.

This was the kind of individual Gayle looked up to; the people whose ‘respect’ he craved.

So after her elder son was jailed for the Notting Hill killing, did Hyacinth Carty do anything - anything at all - to try to stop history repeating itself, to prevent one son becoming a murderous clone of the other? It seems not.

At the time that Santre Gayle carried out his £200 ‘hit’, he was virtually living alone at a flat in Kensal Green. His mother is on the electoral roll, but she was rarely there, even though she doesn’t work (she is understood to be claiming incapacity benefits because of a problem with her legs).

For most of the time, Gayle was left to fend for himself. He never had clean clothes and didn’t always wash, say neighbours. The flat itself was ‘a pigsty’, with rubbish everywhere. Even belongings were kept in black bin bags.

The flat had also become a ‘doss house’ for gang members. The void left by Gayle’s feckless mother had been filled by a very different kind of family. Gayle was a ‘younger’ in the Kensal Green Blood gang (KGB), a group of red bandana-wearing thugs known as the ‘Bloods’. They superseded another gang, the Mus Luv Crew (MLC).

Gayle’s street name was ‘Riot’ - a soubriquet he more than lived up to even before his arrest for murder. By then, he had already been kicked out of school and had convictions for attempted robbery and a public order offence.

Police say he was also dealing in hard drugs from his home. On his MySpace page, Gayle is pictured masked and waving a wad of £50 notes - presumably, the proceeds from drugs.

One drawing posted on the page is called ‘irob’ and depicts a mugging, while another is captioned ‘Click Click Bang’.

There is also a video of a gang (probably the ‘Bloods’) carrying out a mugging. The young victim is filmed being knocked to the ground with a flurry of punches, while his attackers cheer and chant the name of ‘Mike Tyson’.

The ‘Bloods’ are, in fact, one of the most infamous gangs in London. At the height of their notoriety five years ago, they targeted the Underground, producing a ‘good mugging’ guide for their members  - all youngsters from broken homes on estates in North-West London - to terrorise passengers.

The guide is based on the Tube map. Prime mugging spots were marked ‘good eating’, and places where commuters had resisted them were ‘beefs’. Stations with a heavy police presence were identified as ‘hot’.