A GETAWAY driver from Bolton - jailed for his role in the 'gangland execution' iof a cannabis farmer - must continue to serve a 19-year jail sentence.

Dorian Pirija, 34, was imprisoned after father-of-two Hemwand Ali Hussain was blasted at point-blank range with a sawn-off shotgun.

Prosecutors said the gang responsible for the Hartlepool shooting had assembled in Bolton the day before the killing.

Hussain was lured to his death in a dispute over £10,000 worth of drugs, Teeside Crown Court was told.

Pirija, formerly of Trillo Avenue, The Haulgh, alongside his co-defendants Noza Saffari , 39, of Middlesbrough, and Qazim Marku, 25, from West Drayton, were each acquitted of Hussain's murder but found guilty of manslaughter after a trial.

Lawyers representing the trio lodged appeal against sentence applications with the Queen's Bench Criminal Division.

Court officials have now confirmed that Pirija, Saffari and Marku have all been refused leave to appeal their terms.

Marku had also been jailed for 19 years and Saffari for 15 years following a lengthy trial.

Jurors heard an organised crime group brought together members from Bolton, Teesside and London to carry out the ‘execution-style’ slaying. The gunman, identified as Daniel Kadiu, has not been caught.

Prosecutors said the plot to kill the victim was the culmination of a long-running feud between rival Kurdish and Albanian groups on Teesside, which had included a gunfight between the two warring parties in Middlesbrough.

Trial judge Mr Justice Wall said Pirika, Saffari and Marku, were either members of, or working for, an organised crime gang involved in the running of lucrative cannabis farms in the north-east.

Hussain thought he was checking out the site of a prospective cannabis farm, when he turned up at a terraced house in Hartlepool on September 14, 2019. But instead he was accosted and forced to his knees before being shot.

Pirija's role was said to be to ferry members of the execution party away from scene. A planning meeting, before the killing, was said to have taken place in Bolton days before.

Police later found gloves, cable ties, rope and blades in a cupboard in the kitchen at the terraced house.