Teenage dancer 'shot after fight'

A teenage girl was shot in the head after an argument with a fellow member of a dance troupe, a court has heard.

Annaka Pinto, 17, from Upper Edmonton, north London, was shot dead at the Swan pub in Tottenham in June last year.

She was a member of the X-Squad troupe but fell out with fellow dancer Lasticia Manning, the Old Bailey heard.

Triston Walker, 21, from Tottenham, north London, the boyfriend of Miss Manning's sister Simone, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Miss Pinto.

'Ill-feeling'

Miss Pinto, also known as Rella, danced at functions and parties as a member of X-Squad.

David Jeremy QC, prosecuting, said "ill-feeling" between the troupe and ex-member Lasticia Manning built up in the days before the shooting.

"It was this division between the X-Squad girls on one side and Walker and Simone and Lasticia on the other that led to the shooting of Annaka Pinto," he said.

All were present at the Swan pub on 23 June last year.

Mr Jeremy said: "The dance came to an end and the lights came on about five o'clock in the morning. People started to leave.

"Some sort of fight broke out between members of Walker's group and the X-Squad girls."

Seconds before the shooting, CCTV filmed Mr Walker with a gun in his hand and two people trying to grapple with him, the court heard.

As Mr Walker headed for the exit he allegedly fired a shot at Miss Pinto.

She was shot in the right side of the head and died later in hospital from brain damage.

Mr Walker claimed the gun was not his, that he got hold of it after a struggle with another man and that he did not fire the shot.

The court heard that Mr Walker fled London after the shooting and was arrested in Oxford a month later.

Simone Manning, 19, from Tottenham, Ricardo Lumsden, 32, from Edmonton, and Marlon Golding, 24, from Tottenham, deny assisting an offender.

The trial continues.

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