Man charged with Toni-Ann murder

Toni-Ann had been visiting Mr Byfield when they were shot

A man has been charged with murdering a seven-year-old girl and the man she thought was her father two years ago.

Joel Smith is accused of shooting dead Toni-Ann Byfield and Bertram Byfield in Harlesden, north-west London.

Toni-Ann became one of Britain's youngest gun crime victims when her body and that of Mr Byfield were found in a bedsit on 14 September 2003.

Mr Smith, 31, who was arrested in Merseyside two days ago, will appear before magistrates on Friday.

Police are not revealing the details of the court for security reasons.

Toni-Ann, who had been raised in Jamaica, arrived in the UK in 2000 and had been in the care of a foster family in Birmingham before her death.

She had been allowed to go to London to visit Mr Byfield, a convicted drug dealer also known as Anthony Pinnock, while the family were on holiday.

The day she died she had been out shopping with him for a new school uniform.

But DNA tests during the post-mortem examinations revealed that Mr Byfield was not the biological father of Toni-Ann.

Her case was recently highlighted with a march through Brent, north-west London, by the families of shooting victims demanding an end to gun crime and appealing for information.

A month ago, on the second anniversary of her death, police again renewed appeals to find her killer on Crimewatch.

Four people have been arrested over the past few days in London and Merseyside.

Operation Trident detectives, who specialise in tackling London's gun crime, charged Mr Smith, of no fixed address, with murdering both Toni-Ann and Mr Byfield on Thursday.

A 22-year-old man, a 28-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man have been released on police bail.