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Biker shot on M40 identified
14/08/2007 17:28 - (SA)
London - A motorcyclist who was shot dead on one of Britain's busiest freeways as he returned from an annual gathering of bikers was a Canadian national, police said on Tuesday.
Gerard Michael Tobin, 35, was shot in the back of the head by an assailant with a handgun in a green Rover 600-series car on the M40 near Stratford-upon-Avon in west central England.
Detective Superintendent Ken Lawrence, from Warwickshire Police, said the motorcycle mechanic from south London had lived in Britain for the last 10 years and described him as a "hard-working man of good character".
The officer said he was keen to trace witnesses to the attack and the car involved, which is believed to have waited in a lay-by for Tobin and his friends to pass and followed them onto the freeway.
Tobin was returning home with his friends when the attack was staged.
"It seems likely that this was a pre-planned event and it was not a random attack on Gerard," Lawrence added.
Tobin, who was riding a distinctive Harley-Davidson FXSTB model, had been attending the Bulldog Bash, Europe's biggest gathering of bikers at the Long Marston airfield about 32km from where he was shot.
The shooting, which is being treated as murder, saw the motorway shut down from Sunday afternoon to late on Monday as police scoured the area for clues and studied closed-circuit television footage to try to track down the killer.
Lawrence said up to three people were in the car at the time and the assassin would have had to have been a crack shot as the bikes were travelling at about 112km per hour.
They were also looking again at an attack from six years ago when three bikers from Canada and France were shot at on the freeway when returning from the same biker rally. One man was treated for leg injuries.
Tobin is believed to have been a member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and Lawrence has said a possible feud between biker gangs was one line of enquiry.
- AFP
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