A teacher was woken by “desperate screams“ and saw a fatal shooting just hours after she was asked for her hand in marriage, a court heard

Susan Mendison looked out of her bedroom window onto Portpool Lane, in Clerkenwell and saw Aarron McKoy gunned down outside her flat in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Mr McKoy had been with his twin brother Lee celebrating their 22nd birthdays in the nearby Clerkenwell House Wine Bar when fighting broke out between rival gangs.

Miss Mendison had rung in the New Year at Somerset House and got home around 12.30am.

She said: “I took some time to chat with my daughter who lives with me. I talked to her about the marriage proposal I had had that night. I went to bed around 2:15am.”

Her sleep was disturbed just after 4am. She said: “I became aware of noises – shouting and screaming coming from people in Portpool Lane. It was frantic, it sounded desperate – the screams of people trying to stop something happening that was about to happen. It wasn’t party noises, it didn’t sound like that.

“I jumped out of bed and pulled the curtains open. I immediately looked down on the man that died and the person with the gun.”

After hearing a shot and seeing a spark from the gun, she called the police and heard two more shots while on the phone.

She said: “I saw the victim lying on the ground with his hand on his chest. A girl came to him and knelt down. I think she was crying. I thought she might have been laughing initially and it might have been some sort of joke going on.”

Describing the gunman, she said: “On reflection, there is a possibility that they can have been very light-skinned mixed background, but I must say at the time I did believe them to be white.”

Earlier the court heard Mr Mckoy was killed after violence erupted between the Holly Street Boys, with whom the twins were associated, and London Fields Boys and Lordship Boys.

The prosecution claimed another Holly Street associate, Ricky Walkington, had been knifed outside the club and in the ensuing melee outside, a gun went off.

Aftab Jafferjee QC, prosecuting, said: “Aarron Mckoy was targeted for a physical assault. Gang rivalry had erupted in its most violent form.”

He added: “Very soon after the second physical attack on him he was cornered, having tried to get away. Possibly because he slipped and fell, the small pursuing mob shot him dead. The person holding the gun was Dean Smith.”

Dean Smith, 26, from Lordship Road, Stoke Newington, a rapper also known by his street named Bungle, is said to have pulled the trigger.

Perrie Dennis, 22, of Thornbury Close, Newington Green, Osman Mohammed, 23, of Homerton Road, Hackney, Daniel Oyetoro, 27, of Charlbury Crescent, Romford, and Jack Nichols, 21, and Ceon Hewitt, 22, of High Street, Wickford, are also charged with his murder.

The trial continues.