AJAX -- The teenaged ringleader of a shooting rampage that left five people wounded has been sentenced to the equivalent of three years in custody.

It’s a wonder no one was killed when the young man and his friends opened fire on a street crowded with youths and youngsters out trick-or-treating in a residential Ajax neighbourhood, Ontario Court Justice Donald Halikowski said in delivering his ruling.

“As a result of this youth’s actions five people were shot and only an act of Providence prevented someone from being killed,” Justice Halikowski said.

“He is quite capable of performing the cold act of planning the shooting of another human being and not caring if people other than his target find themselves in the line of fire.”

The judge sentenced the youth to 12 months in jail and another 10 months of open custody, giving him credit for the equivalent of eight months in pretrial custody. The youth, 17 at the time of the incident on Oct. 31, 2006, will also be on probation for a year.

The youth’s identity, along with the names of two others charged in the incident and tried separately, is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. An order imposed at the beginning of court proceedings earlier this year prohibited reporting on the cases until the conclusion of evidence in the trial of the two co-accused, which occurred last week.

At both trials judges heard the youth targeted a rival who had broken his jaw in an earlier clash, enlisting the help of friends and tracking the young man down at the Nottingham subdivsion on Rossland Road near Westney Road on Halloween night. The young men climbed out of a taxi van they’d hired for the night and waded into the crowd, firing what witnesses described as eight to 10 shots. The shooters ran back to the van and fled, court heard.

Five people were hit and one stray bullet slammed into a home nearby. After an intensive police investigation the youth was charged with five counts of aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and numerous weapons offences.

Durham police Detective Dan McKinnon said cops were aided by witnesses who stepped up to help the investigation in spite of the danger they may have faced.

“The investigative team worked around the clock for evidence . . . interviewing over 100 witnesses,” he said.

“The witnesses weren’t intimidated and they did the right thing.”

Police were shocked by the nature of the crime, which saw multiple shots fired on a street crowded with innocent bystanders, he said.

“The crime was reckless,” Det. McKinnon said.

“I don’t know how nobody got killed that night.”

In explaining the sentence, Justice Halikowski said that even if the youth didn’t pull the trigger that night, he engineered the incident.

“(The youth) was the prime mover in this operation,” the judge said.

“Nothing short of incarceration will bring home to this young man the seriousness of his actions.”

A verdict in the case of the other youths is expected in May.