Drugs-row murder twins facing life

CHADDERTON twins Brett and Jordan Francis are facing life in prison after being convicted of murdering a father-of-two.

The pair gunned down Amran Khan in a drive-by shooting after a row over drugs before throwing themselves in the River Mersey in a suicide bid.

They denied murder but were found guilty after the jury deliberated for only two hours at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court yesterday.

The identical twins, aged 26 and from Birch Avenue, are due to be sentenced today.

The court was told that they had supplied Mr Khan with £12,000 worth of heroin but had not been paid.

Mr Khan (29), known as Manny, was lured to the doorstep of his Nugget Street bungalow, in Glodwick, at about 10.30pm on September 18, last year, by someone throwing a piece of kerbstone at his car.

He had just put his young daughters to bed when he went to investigate the noise.

He was shot in the chest and back before the gunmen, armed with a 9mm Luger, sped off in a stolen BMW 5 Series. Mr Khan’s wife Shamila was left screaming hysterically for help and neighbours rushed to his aid, but he died later at the Royal Oldham Hospital. The murder shocked the local community.

The twins fled to Runcorn where they took dozens of painkillers, slit their wrists and threw themselves into the River Mersey. But they changed their minds, hauled themselves out of the water and confessed the murder to paramedics they asked neighbours to call to the scene.

Jordan told a paramedic they had tried to take their lives because “we killed someone.” When questioned further he said the victim was a friend and that it was his brother who did it but they stick together.

Brett told another paramedic: “We’ve killed someone, but we didn’t mean to. It’s a long story.”

The car was found burned out under a motorway bridge at Hough Lane, in Chadderton, where a cartridge case was found inside.

Paul Campbell Reid, prosecuting, said: “The Khans and the two brothers fell out over a drug debt. Amran Khan was murdered as part of the repercussions of that.”

The twins, wearing matching dark suits and ties, stared and smirked at Mr Khan’s sobbing relatives as they were sent down.