A 16-year-old boy gunned down in front of hundreds of skaters at an ice rink witnessed a fatal shooting ten months before his own death.

James Andre Smartt-Ford, murdered at Streatham Ice Arena in February, was one of a crowd of youngsters who saw 18-year-old Fabian Ricketts die outside a Battersea bar in April 2006.

Ricketts, an aspiring film director, was shot in the heart when he became embroiled in a gang dispute outside the Battersea Bar in York Road.

Jordan Burree, 20, Terence Clarke, 22, and Christian Vasquez, 22, had been accused of Ricketts's murder after an Old Bailey trial.

Vasquez was said to have brandished a double-barrelled shotgun just before the killing while Burree pistol-whipped one of Ricketts's pals, then gloated over the dead teenager.

But all three men were cleared of any wrongdoing after Judge Andrew Morris, QC, ruled there was insufficient evidence against them for a jury to safely convict.

Formal verdicts of not guilty were entered in respect of all three defendants halfway through their trial.

The jury was told James Andre Smartt-Ford witnessed the shooting of Ricketts but the judge made an order banning any further reporting of the trial.

The end of the case can now be reported after Burree was jailed for three years after he was caught with a loaded 120-year-old 'Wild West' revolver.

The antique 19th-century Smith and Wesson fell from his trousers during a routine stop and search on Wandsworth Road, Battersea, on July 18 last year.

Ricketts had driven three of his friends to the bar, where crowds of people had gathered for a Bank Holiday barbecue on April 17 last year.

By the time they arrived, a group of youths were swarming around and a gang-related argument had kicked off, forcing the landlord of the Battersea bar to phone police.

Witnesses, who were given psuedonyms to protect them from possible reprisals, told the jury how Smarrt-Ford had been among the partygoers.

A friend who arrived with Ricketts, known only as Witness C, said he inadvertently sparked a fight by gesturing to a boy he thought he recognised.

Some of the youths thought he had pointed his hand with a gun gesture - a sign of aggression used by gangs in street confrontations.

Ricketts was shot at close range through the heart and left lung in the fight that followed.

Brendan Finucane QC alleged Burree was heard to say: 'Good - you got bun', Jamaican patois for 'you got shot'.

Ricketts, of Caithness Road, Mitcham, was taken to St George's Hospital, Tooting, but died soon afterwards.

He had ambitions of becoming a film director and was working in the Streatham branch of Woolworths before his death.

The three defendants were formally cleared of his murder and of assaulting Witness C during the same incident.

Burree, of Emu Road, South Lambeth; Clarke, of Stroudley House, Patmore Estate, Battersea; and Vasquez, of Kingsley House, Smedley Street, Clapham, all denied murder and assault causing actual bodily harm.

Burree alone had pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition in respect of the Smith and Wesson.

He will be eligible for release after serving half of his three year sentence minus the 10 months already served on remand.