I didn't think my son would lose his life over a daft argument

Mum went from relaxing in bath to seeing dad-of-four shot dead in street

- ANDREW BARDSLEY

AS JUSTINA Bobmanuel soaked in the bath, she heard a 'pop' drift in from the window.

Having never heard a gun being fired before, she had little idea of what it would sound like.

It was only minutes later, when she found her son lying in the street, that she realised the horror of what that 'pop' actually was. Moments earlier, her son Zikel had visited her at her home in Openshaw.

March last year was already a sad time for the Bobmanuel family. Justina's father, Zikel's grandfather, had recently passed away and they were going through the administrative arrangements which grieving families have to manage following the death of a loved one.

After Zikel had left, she went for a bath. She began to fear something was wrong when the unmistakable sound of a helicopter filtered into the bathroom.

She got dressed and went to investigate, and saw her 32-year-old son prone on the ground.

The air ambulance had landed and Zikel was being treated by paramedics.

But their desperate attempts to save him were in vain. A conversation she'd had with him minutes earlier, which she'd brushed off at the time, began to gain added meaning. Zikel, a dad-of-four whose youngest child was just six weeks old when he died, had come round to pick up some of his belongings which were stored at his late grandfather's home nearby.

With his new born baby in tow, Zikel began 'pacing' as he spoke with someone on the phone. "It was unusual, I just knew something wasn't right," she later recalled in court.

It soon became clear he was speaking with Rumaal Ingram, 36, better known as Marley, his half-brother. The pair, who shared a father, had a 'tempestuous' relationship.