Power-hungry young gang members are behind a spate of shootings in Birmingham that included the killing of a 24-year-old man on Saturday night, an expert believes.

Derrick Campbell, a Home Office adviser who was born and lives in the city, fears that the death of Dimitri Foskin will lead to more revenge attacks.

He said that a series of police successes had left a leadership vacuum in which younger gang members were out of control. They were now fighting among themselves for supremacy of the disintegrating groups and their drug-dealing profits.

Dr Campbell, chairman of the National Independent Advisory Group on Criminal Use of Firearms, said: “The police had short-term success convicting senior gang members, but there was no long-term strategy. I fear that in the next week or two there could be more murders.”

Last week, with gang rivalries increasing, West Midlands Police appealed for calm and put extra officers on patrol. They also asked 26 nightclubs to close early. Despite their pre-emptive work, the force was unable to stop the killing of Mr Foskin in a drive-by shooting in the Newtown area of Birmingham on Saturday night. His death, from a single gunshot wound to the chest, is believed to be related to two previous drive-by attacks in the Handsworth and Ladywood areas of the city this month. It was the third gun death in the city since December and the latest in a series of violent incidents there.

The West Midlands force has enjoyed great success with two of Birmingham’s most notorious gangs. The Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew were routed after the murders of Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17, who were shot dead outside a hairdresser’s in 2003.

Ten senior members of the gangs were jailed for various offences, including murder. This cut gun crime in the city by a quarter but, according to Dr Campbell, the “decapitation” strategy has also meant that younger members who would previously have been controlled by the old hierarchy are emerging and asserting themselves.

Dr Campbell said that old structures with a single leader and tiers of “management” beneath them had crumbled. “We are seeing two types of gang now. The first is a proper gang that is falling apart because no one wants to be the leader. But still there is criminal activity because they need money. They have to eat and have girlfriends and children to clothe.”

Dr Campbell said that the second type of gang was one in which a young member wanted to assert himself over a loose affiliation of people and would go to extremes to do so.

“The problem is that no one person can control a group like that and, without the old leaders to exert control over them and absorb them into their gangs, it becomes volatile and extremely unpredictable in policing terms.

“The old gangs were very structured and efficient in a business sense. These new groups aren’t. Now gang members are going after individual wealth rather than group wealth.”

Chief Superintendent Michael Treble said yesterday that it was too early to say for certain that Mr Foskin’s death was gang-related.

He added: “West Midlands Police are, of course, aware of gang culture and gang tensions. Gang culture is a real and live issue but gun crime is relatively rare.”

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