I used to think that the sight of armed police on London streets was largely theatre, a response to problems better solved upstream. A case like this one in Croydon makes me reconsider. On 21 May 2025, three men turned a quiet residential road into a shooting gallery in under two minutes. Yesterday they received custodial sentences that reflect the seriousness of what they did.
The facts are straightforward yet chilling. At about 7.26pm on Walsh Crescent in New Addington, Tevin Nzita, 29, of Warbank Crescent, Croydon, fired two shots from a sawn-off shotgun at a man sitting in his car. The first shattered the windscreen and missed. The second passed through the driver’s side window and struck the victim in the chest. Anthony Da Sousa, 30, of Station Approach, Coulsdon, was at the wheel of the black saloon used in the attack. His brother Christopher Da Sousa, 27, of Mickleham Way, Croydon, had helped locate the victim and assisted with preparations only minutes after a prior confrontation captured on the victim’s own phone.
The victim, a man in his thirties, somehow drove himself to hospital. He survived and has since recovered. That he lived feels closer to luck than design. The attackers showed, in the words of Detective Constable John Davis of the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime Command, "a complete disregard for human life". Davis added that this was "an incredibly dangerous attack carried out in a residential street where innocent members of the public could easily have been caught in the crossfire."
This was an incredibly dangerous attack carried out in a residential street where innocent members of the public could easily have been caught in the crossfire. The offenders acted together to locate the victim, track his movements and carry out a planned shooting using a sawn-off shotgun capable of killing. Their actions showed a complete disregard for human life.
The getaway car was later found in Old Coulsdon, hidden, repaired and fitted with cloned plates. Nzita and Anthony Da Sousa were arrested within two weeks. Christopher Da Sousa was picked up in December. The Metropolitan Police built its case on CCTV, forensics from the shotgun, mobile phone analysis, location data and eyewitness accounts. All three men were convicted after trial. At Woolwich Crown Court on 23 July 2026, Nzita received 25 years, Anthony Da Sousa 15 years, and Christopher Da Sousa four years.
What stands out is not the grim novelty of the offence but the methodical nature of the response. Police recovered footage from the victim’s car that established the motive as swift retaliation. Digital evidence, combined with more traditional policing, pinned roles to each participant. The sentences, particularly the one handed to the shooter, signal that courts still treat planned firearm attacks with appropriate gravity.
Of course, one successful prosecution does not transform the wider picture. Gun crime in parts of south London has deep roots and repeats in depressing cycles. Yet cases like this quietly undermine the idea that such violence is somehow inevitable or excusable by reference to social conditions alone. The men chose their actions. The system, for once, chose to pursue them with determination rather than abstraction.
