TWO brothers have each been sentenced to 35 years in jail for running down a man who was then shot and stabbed in a vicious gang war.

Dwight Callender, aged 23, of Mercator Road, Lewisham, and brother Derrell, aged 20, of Leybridge Court, Eltham, carried out the attack on April 24 in Sandford Street, New Cross.

The brothers sped their van towards intended target Mohammed Turay, 20, after an argument but instead ploughed into his 17-year-old friend Johnson Ndjoli.

As Mr Turay ran to help his friend, armed members of the Callenders’ Shower Gang ran over brandishing weapons while the brothers spun the van around.

They again drove at the men, sending Mr Turay sprawling on to the windscreen before he was hurled to the ground.

The brothers’ van then crushed Mr Ndjoli against railings, leaving him with massive head injuries.

As the teenager lay bleeding and helpless on the ground, members of the gang blasted him in the buttocks with a shotgun and slashed him with a knife.

He remains in a coma and doctors do not expect him to survive.

Mr Turay escaped without serious injury.

The older brother, who had driven the van, today refused to come up to court from the cells for sentencing, claiming he had a leg injury.

But Derrell Callender laughed and whispered to friends and family throughout the proceedings.

Sentencing them, Judge Paul Worsley said it was “hard to imagine a more wicked thing to do.”

In a statement read out in court, Mr Ndjoli's father said: “I have come to the realisation that I will never again hear my son speak to me.

“He cannot move, speak, eat or even see and I will never know if he even realises I am there.”

The brothers received 25-year sentences for trying to kill Mr Ndjoli and another 10 for Mr Turay.

Both brothers had denied two counts of attempted murder, one count of causing GBH with intent and another of attempting to inflict GBH.

After they were found guilty of attempted murder at the Old Bailey yesterday (Nov 30) the other charges were dropped.

Superintendent Lisa Crook from Lewisham Police said: “These were prominent gang members who believed they were untouchable, it was only when the community started telling us what they were doing that we were able to build enough evidence to bring these men to justice for their crimes.

"Intelligence from the public led to these men being identified, convicted and now sentenced which shows that good communication between the local police and people of Lewisham works.”