Gunman faces sentence over boxer

Kanyanta Mulenga, 23, faces life imprisonment after being convicted of the "senseless" murder of father-of-three James Oyebola.

He gunned down Mr Oyebola with a converted replica automatic pistol three weeks after the ban on lighting up in public places came into force in July last year.

The 46-year-old was shot through the back of the neck at the Chateau 6 bar in Fulham Broadway, west London, after asking a group of men to stop smoking.

Mr Oyebola, a former British heavyweight title holder who won a bronze medal in the 1986 Commonwealth Games, was enjoying a quiet drink when trouble erupted.

Many of the 50 partygoers inside the bar were left diving for cover, then rushing for the exit, as Mulenga fired off four shots, one going into the roof and two hitting Mr Oyebola.

He was shot first in the leg and then in the neck and died four days later in hospital, never regaining consciousness, the Old Bailey heard.

Jeremy Donne QC, prosecuting, told the jury: "The reason for the killing was particularly senseless. James Oyebola had become involved in a dispute over smoking inside the club."

Mr Oyebola, a father of three, had been asking people in a "perfectly pleasant way" to put their cigarettes out in the garden area of the bar, which counted as enclosed premises because it had a retracting roof.

Mulenga, a convicted drug dealer of Putney, south west London, was on Wednesday found guilty of murder by a 9-1 majority verdict.