Four people have been found guilty of a plot to intimidate a court witness by throwing a hand grenade and firing a gun at his home.

Shots from a handgun were fired through the front door of a man's Ongar home on April 30, last year.

No one was injured as people were not at home at the time.

After the shooting, a second attack had a hand grenade explode near the front of the same house just three days later.

The attacks were carried out before the victim was due to give evidence for the prosecution at the trial of a gang charged with conspiracy to handle stolen cars, possession of cocaine with intent to supply and possessing firearms.

A further attempt to intimidate the witness by attacking him at his office in London on May 2 was planned, but not carried out.

Walid Habib, 37, and unemployed, of Sevenoaks Road, Romford, Anna Ibrahim, 32, of Somerford Street, Bethnal Green, Jahzeiah Francois, 24, an entertainer from Cranbrook Road, Ilford and Kirtharan Thuraisingam, 33, of Perth Road, Ilford were all found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and possession of explosives on Friday (July 3).

During the seven-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, the jury heard that the attacks were ordered by Habib and Claudio Mohamed, 45, a cleaner of Kingston Road, Ilford, who pleaded guilty to the charges at an earlier hearing.

Habib carried out a reconnaissance of the victim's home with Ibrahim, who helped plan the attacks, and Francois.

Francois fired the shots at the house while Thuraisingam acted as driver.

When the shots failed to deter the witness from attending court, Habib called for the hand grenade attack.

Thuraisingam drove other members of the gang to carry out the grenade attack.

All five will be sentenced on July 31.

Nabil Juma, 23, of Harts Lane, Barking, Daniel Piddington, 26, of Kingston Road, Romford, and Antonio Afflick-McLeod, 24, of Springvale Terrace, Hammersmith, were all found not guilty.