Two men have been jailed for a combined 55 years over the Bexleyheath nightclub shooting that left a man with life-changing injuries.
Marvin Bulle, 33, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 35 years at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday 9 October. Carlos Parks, 35, of Sidcup Road, Eltham, was jailed for 20 years at the same hearing. Together, the terms add up to 55 years.
The sentencing, reported by the Metropolitan Police, closes a case that began with gunfire on Bexleyheath Broadway in the early hours of Sunday 4 January 2026, after a minor altercation inside a nightclub spilled outside.
What the men were convicted of
The court outcome needs to be read separately from the charges the men first faced. Both were originally charged with attempted murder, but the jury returned different verdicts when the case was heard at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday 7 August.
Bulle was found guilty of attempted murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. Parks was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. The sentences imposed on 9 October reflect those convictions, and they are the terms both men are now serving.
The night of the shooting
Police were called at around 2.15am on 4 January to reports of a shooting outside a nightclub on Bexleyheath Broadway. Officers attended alongside the London Ambulance Service and a 30-year-old man was taken to hospital in a critical condition.
He had been shot at close range as groups left the venue following an earlier altercation inside. He spent eight days on a critical care ward and has been left with life-changing injuries. No further medical detail is published here beyond what is needed to understand the seriousness of the case. Our earlier coverage set out how the man survived after being shot outside the Bexleyheath nightclub and the initial police account of the January attack.
The court heard that after the initial confrontation, Parks and Bulle returned to their car. CCTV captured conversation in which a slang term for a firearm was used, and footage showed Bulle retrieving an item from the front passenger seat and making a movement consistent with preparing a gun. As Bulle walked back towards the scene, Parks followed slowly in the car.
Bulle then fired twice at close range towards the victim. The shooting was captured by a dashcam in a London Ambulance Service response car that had been flagged down to help another man who had been knocked unconscious outside the venue during the earlier disturbance. That footage became a central part of the evidence.
After the shots, Bulle ran to Parks’ car and the pair drove away at speed. Parks lost control around 100 metres from the scene and crashed into a lamppost. The car was abandoned and both men fled on foot.
Arrests, charges and the missing gun
Both men were identified from CCTV. Parks was arrested in Greenwich on 4 January, around 14 hours after the shooting. Bulle travelled to Suffolk and then to rural Essex, where he was arrested in Mistley on Wednesday 14 January.
Parks was charged on Tuesday 6 January with attempted murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, and was remanded in custody at Bromley Magistrates’ Court the same day. Bulle was charged with the same offences on Thursday 15 January and was also remanded at Bromley Magistrates’ Court.
At first, investigators could not find the weapon, which meant there was no DNA evidence linking Bulle directly to a gun. That changed months later. A converted starter pistol recovered in Eltham in May during a separate, unrelated investigation was examined by the Met’s specialist forensics laboratory and linked to the Bexleyheath shooting.
Case timeline: from Broadway to Woolwich Crown Court
- 4 January 2026, about 2.15am: Police are called to a shooting outside a nightclub on Bexleyheath Broadway. A 30-year-old man is taken to hospital in a critical condition.
- 4 January: Parks is arrested in Greenwich, around 14 hours after the shooting.
- 6 January: Parks is charged and remanded in custody at Bromley Magistrates’ Court.
- 14 January: Bulle is arrested in Mistley, Essex, after travelling through Suffolk.
- 15 January: Bulle is charged and remanded in custody at Bromley Magistrates’ Court.
- May 2026: A converted starter pistol recovered in Eltham during a separate investigation is forensically linked to the Broadway shooting.
- 7 August: At Woolwich Crown Court, Bulle and Parks are convicted of the offences set out above.
- 9 October: Bulle is jailed for 35 years and Parks for 20 years, a combined total of 55 years.
What police said after sentencing
Detective Inspector Raymond Sekalongo, of the Met’s specialist Trident firearms unit, led the response quoted by the force after the hearing. In a brief extract from his statement, he said the attack could easily have killed the victim and described the survival as remarkable.
He said both men were dangerous, welcomed the length of the sentences, and pointed to the recovery of the firearm as a result that removed a lethal weapon from circulation. He also presented the case as an example of the consequences of gun crime and of the Met’s work to bring those responsible for serious violence in the capital before the courts.
The wider picture in the borough is one residents will recognise. The issue of reporting lower-level incidents before they escalate was raised recently by the local MP, as we reported in Bexley MP urges residents to report every anti-social behaviour incident. Cases like this one, by contrast, sit at the most serious end of the courts’ work, alongside other matters we cover in the borough such as the ongoing Bexleyheath teacher trial at the Old Bailey.
Elsewhere in London, the human cost of shootings and the long wait for updates will be familiar to readers following our coverage of the man shot in Wembley, where police issued a fresh update a week after that attack.
For Bexleyheath, the Broadway shooting from January has now reached its conclusion in court. Bulle and Parks, convicted in August, were sentenced on 9 October to 35 and 20 years respectively. The victim, whose injuries are life-changing, survived an attack that the court heard was captured on an ambulance dashcam and reconstructed through CCTV, forensic work and a gun recovered months later in Eltham.
