Four men have been found guilty of murdering Ashley Dale after she was shot dead with a machine gun at her home.
Today at Liverpool Crown Court, four of the six men on trial were convicted of killing 28-year-old Ashley on August 21 last year.
James Witham, 41, Joseph Peers, 29, Niall Barry, 26, and Sean Zeisz, 28, were found guilty and will be sentenced on Wednesday.
The court heard council worker Ashley was not the intended target and was shot as a gunman burst in looking for her partner. She was home alone with her dog when James Witham killed her with a Skorpian machine gun.
Witham, Peers, Barry and Zeisz were also convicted of conspiracy to murder Miss Dale’s partner Lee Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition.
Ian Fitzgibbon, who had also been on trial, was cleared of all charges after denying murder, manslaughter, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess firearms.
A sixth man, Kallum Radford, was found not guilty of assisting an offender.
Tears were shed in the public gallery as word spread that verdicts had been reached, with Judge Goose reminding all those present that each of the verdicts had to be delivered in silence.
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During the trial, Witham had told Liverpool Crown Court: "I haven't slept for a year. I have nightmares every time."
He went on: "I've had a year of torture. What I've done to that poor girl. It's been a nightmare for me and obviously her family as well. I'm so sorry."
DNA belonging to Witham was found on a bullet casing from a Skorpion machine pistol in Ashley's home in Leinster Road, Old Swan. He told the court no one else was involved in the shooting, saying: "It's all down to me." Asked by the prosecution if he was the fall guy for the others he added: "No, that's not true. They couldn't do that. No one could do that."
During the trial, voice recordings made by Miss Dale before her death were played to the court in which she described her “terrible anxiety” and told friends Barry, who had fallen out with Mr Harrison several years before, was “on some pure rampage”.
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Jurors were told that Ashley had been excited about a promotion at work when she was murdered.The prosecution used the voice notes from Ashley's phone to help bring her killers to justice.
They described a growing feud between her boyfriend and one of the defendants, Niall Barry, 26, who was accused of orchestrating the plot. The court heard that the dispute between Mr Harrison and Barry dated back to 2019 when drug dealer Barry had a stash stolen by the Hillsiders gang.
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The pair had previously been close but when Mr Harrison joined the Hillsiders, Barry was left angry. The feud was reignited at Glastonbury Festival in 2022, when Barry arrived with a knife threatening to "stab up" Mr Harrison. Between June and her death in August, Ashley described her growing anxiety over her boyfriend’s feud with Barry, telling her pals in one voice note that she was always” looking over her shoulder".
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Jurors were shown CCTV and telephone evidence illustrating how Barry, Sean Zeisz, James Witham and Joseph Peers had cooked up a plot to kill Mr Harrison from a small flat in the Dovecot area of the city. Chilling footage showed gunman, James Witham 41, and getaway driver Joseph Peers, 28, driving up Ashley's street before the murder.
They slashed her tyres, setting off her car alarm, in an effort to draw their target Mr Harrison from the house. But when that plan failed Witham kicked the door down, firing 10 bullets as he chased Ashely screaming through the house.
Neighbours described hearing the screams before noticing a woman laid groaning in her back garden. Officers matched the footprint left on Ashley's door to a pair of trainers Witham had bought just days before.
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