#city #guntoting #gangs #Skorpion #machine #gun #weapon #choice #Liverpool #women #children #collateral #damage #spiralling #tit #tat #drug #war
The Skorpion submachine gun, lightweight and easily concealable, can fire 16 bullets a second and 900 in a minute. Indiscriminate, uncontrolled carnage is unleashed, in other words, when the trigger is held down; only a sociopath would discharge such a weapon outside a battlefield.
But, according to police, it is the new gun of choice for organised crime groups in Liverpool.
The latest sickening proof is here in the Old Swan district in Wavertree, a few miles south-east of the city centre, which is considered a decent place to live.
Yet shortly after 12.30am on August 21 last year, an assassin in a balaclava kicked down the front door of the terraced house, with its hanging basket outside, where 28-year-old Ashley Dale was enjoying a quiet Saturday night in on the sofa with her dachshund Darla for company.
She made it to the back garden before being cut down. One of the ten bullets sprayed from the hitman’s military-grade Skorpion passed through her abdomen and killed her. There was no mistake. The lights were on and Ashley, who was days away from starting a promotion at work at Knowsley Council, was very clearly visible.
Liverpool – where women and children have become collateral damage in spiralling tit-for-tat drug wars
28-year-old Ashley Dale was enjoying a quiet Saturday night in on the sofa with her dachshund Darla when she was mercilessly gunned down by James Witham, 41
Ashley, 28, was found with a gunshot wound in the back garden of her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, on August 21, 2021
The Skorpion submachine gun, lightweight and easily concealable, can fire 16 bullets a second and 900 in a minute
Ashley Dale’s mother Julie (left) said: ‘We should be celebrating her 30th birthday this year’. Pictured right is Ashley’s father, Steve Dunne
The execution of a blameless young woman in her own home epitomises the increasingly nihilistic violence that is infecting Merseyside and many other towns and cities in Britain.
‘The use of a military-grade submachine gun to kill a young woman in her own home at night in a planned shooting of the occupants of that house is beyond any comprehension,’ is how the judge put it as her killers were jailed.
There is an unbearably cruel twist in all this. Seven years ago Ashley’s 16-year-old stepbrother Lewis was shot dead as he walked along a canal towpath in a case of mistaken identity.
Two innocent siblings gunned down by different gangs in their home town. It’s a sentence that should never be written.
Four men: James Witham, 41 (the gunman), Joseph Peers, 29 (the driver), and ‘decisive’ underworld figures Niall Barry, 26, and Sean Zeisz, 28, who orchestrated the attack, were each jailed for a minimum of more than 41 years at Liverpool Crown Court this week.
Between them they have 80 previous convictions for crimes including assault, drug dealing, handling stolen goods and public order offences.
Many, not just those who knew and loved Ashley, believe her boyfriend Lee Harrison, 26, who refused to assist the police in bringing them to justice, also has blood on his hands, metaphorically, at least, because he was entrenched in the same dystopian world as the merciless quartet (‘monsters’, Ashley’s family called them) standing in the dock.
Had Ashley not met Harrison she would still be alive. Lee Harrison was in a gang called the Hillsiders. Niall Barry ran a county lines gang called the Kyle Line.
Many, not just those who knew and loved Ashley, believe her boyfriend Lee Harrison, 26, who refused to assist the police in bringing them to justice, also has blood on his hands
Had Ashley (pictured) not met her boyfriend Lee Harrison she would still be alive. Harrison was in a gang called the Hillsiders. Niall Barry ran a county lines gang called the Kyle Line
Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine, was shot dead in Liverpool by Thomas Cashman after he broke into her home while hunting fellow career criminal Joseph Nee
It can now be revealed that two of those convicted of murdering Ms Dale – plus Harrison – were named during the trial of Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s killer, Thomas Cashman, as being allegedly involved in a deadly feud that culminated in the schoolgirl’s shooting
The two men were engaged in a longstanding feud. Harrison was the intended target but he was not in the house so Ashley was ‘taken out’ anyway.
Few cities, outside London perhaps, have a richer cultural past than Liverpool. Locals have every right to take pride in their city, which produced The Beatles and two of our greatest football clubs.
But, at the same time, could life be any cheaper than if you are caught in the crosshairs of gang rivalry in the city today?
The death of Ashley Dale was one of three fatal shootings in the space of a week in Liverpool last year.
Two of the men now serving life for her murder, Niall Barry and Sean Zeisz, were also suspects in the murder of schoolgirl Olivia Pratt-Korbel who was shot in the chest as she cowered on the stairs behind her mother just hours before Ashley was gunned down. And while the statistics might tell us that gun crime in Liverpool is down on previous years, the weaponry is becoming ever more dangerous.
The Skorpion, originally issued to Czech special forces, was used in three fatal shootings in the city last year and five Skorpions are known to still be in circulation based on the analysis of gun crime scenes.
There are almost certainly many more on the streets which are not on the police radar.
A report by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in 2020 found that 70 per cent of all links to weapons examined in Britain led back to Liverpool and the North West of England.
By 2017, figures based on police intelligence showed that Liverpool had more than 190 gangs, with nearly 3,000 members — a small army — ranging from low-level thugs to sophisticated criminal organisations with international connections.
It is one of the reasons that the Albanian mafia, which controls much of the cocaine market in the UK, has been unable to gain a foothold on Merseyside.
A wave of recent arrests following the penetration of the EncroChat encrypted phone network has weakened organised crime in the city. The vacuum is being filled, however, by an even more ruthless breed. ‘It has created a gap for the next generation of criminals to come through and they seem to be more chaotic and more dangerous,’ said Richard Kemp, Deputy Lord Mayor of Liverpool and a councillor for 41 years.
‘Tragically, innocent people are the collateral damage of gang-on-gang turf wars connected to the drugs trade.’
One such neighbourhood is Hillside, in Huyton, Knowsley, on the outskirts of Liverpool, one of the most deprived areas of the country — and the home of the ‘Hillside Edz’ (Hillside Estate) or ‘Hillsiders’.
Ashley Dales’ mother Julie Dale listens as a statement is read out on her behalf outside Liverpool Crown Court after James Witham, Joseph Peers, Niall Barry, and Sean Zeisz, were given life sentences, with minimum terms of between 41 and 47 years
Ashley Dales’ mother Julie Dale (left) and sister leave Liverpool Crown Court after the sentencing of her killers
Sean Zeisz, Niall Barry, Joseph Peers and James Witham (left to right) were jailed for life with minimum terms of 41 to 47 years for the murder of Ashley Dale
On one side of Hillside Avenue, a main artery running through the estate, are rows of new-build homes; on the other, it’s the opposite and an almost no-go area for outsiders, as I discovered when I visited this week. ‘I wouldn’t go there’, a young mother warned us. ‘I certainly wouldn’t park there.’
Moments later, two teenagers cycled towards our car and mouthed threats through the windscreen.
A number of homes, if that is the right name for these properties on a notorious part of the estate, are burnt-out shells. Rubbish is piled high outside. Some families have given up and left.
A large quantity of drugs and weapons, including swords and lock knives, were seized in a police crackdown on gangs in the vicinity in July.
One of the few decent residents to remain in the no-go area of Hillside showed me doorcam footage of two masked figures hurling bricks at his house because he was wrongly suspected of being a ‘grass’.
‘On another occasion recently,’ he says, ‘I was shown a 9mm bullet and told, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ ‘ How old was the person with the bullet? He was no more than 11 or 12. On Hillside, boys like him grow up to be men like Lee Harrison — Ashley’s boyfriend, remember — or Niall Barry.
Back in 2018, Harrison and Barry were friends until cocaine and cannabis worth somewhere in the region of £40,000 was robbed from a ‘stash’ house under Barry’s control. The Hillsiders, with whom Harrison was affiliated, were held responsible, apparently.
The falling-out was reignited when all the players involved in this tangled web encountered each other at Glastonbury Festival last year. Six months later, Ashley Dale paid the ultimate price.
Too many spots in Liverpool — pavements, roads, car parks, street corners, and pubs like the Lighthouse across the Mersey in Wallasey Village on the Wirral are now part of the city’s bloody past and violent present.
On Christmas Eve last year Elle Edwards, a young beautician having a drink with her sister and friends in the Lighthouse, was shot in the head shortly before midnight. Like Ashley, she was not the target. Like Ashley, she was killed with a Skorpion.
The gunman, 23-year-old Connor Chapman, described by police as a ‘coward’ with ‘no moral compass’, simply opened fire at the entrance and sprayed the pub with bullets.
Behind the shooting was — still is — a raging war between gangs from two estates, Woodchurch and Beechwood. Chapman, now serving life, was a member of the former; Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy, the intended victims of the Lighthouse attack, the latter.
The feud has sparked a relentless cycle of violence on the Wirral where not so long ago gun crime was rare.
The reasons for the escalation are unclear but both groups engaged in robberies and burglaries where the homes of the family members of their rivals were targeted.
‘Everyone knows about the Woodchurch and Beechwood gangs and Connor Chapman,’ said a woman at the Busy Bees nursery, who, like everyone else we spoke to, was reluctant to give her name.
Ms Dale was shot in the back garden of her home in Old Swan, Liverpool (pictured)
Last year, she said, there were three incidents alone involving guns at the Arrowe Park pub just a few yards from the nursery — a shooting in the car park, a second occasion when police were called, and a third when ‘someone went inside waving a gun about. It’s all down to the feud between the two gangs’.
Gun shots also rang out in Orrets Meadow Road, Newark Close and Hoole Road where a man was shot multiple times in full view of the public, including children.
‘I was in my car outside the Co-op when a van pulled up alongside three lads who were walking towards me,’ said a 73-year-old man who lives nearby.
‘I heard three shots. I thought it was fireworks, then one of the lads went down.’
In September, Lewis Chapman — brother of notorious Connor Chapman — was banned from entering his home estate (Woodchurch) after being made the subject of a gang injunction. There is just one more thing to add about the feud. Lewis Chapman, 22, was also shot — in aptly named Danger Lane on the Wirral — four months before Elle Edwards was killed by his older brother.
The gun used in both cases was a Skorpion, which means both the Woodchurch and Beechwood gangs have access to this deadly weapon.
Many old firearms, including Skorpions, were reactivated in so-called gun factories, according to the (2020) NCA report.
‘I used to repair broken guns and modify deactivated firearms, mainly pistols, revolvers, automatics and semi-automatics,’ said someone who has been to prison for running one such factory on the Merseyside docks but is now a reformed character.
‘It depends on the make and model, but I used to do it in about 15 minutes. The most deadly ones were machine guns and rifles.’
You might be surprised to learn that a fifth man went on trial for Ashley Dale’s murder but there has been little mention of 28-year-old Ian Fitzgibbon because he was acquitted.
He is the grandson of underworld matriarch Christine Fitzgibbon who built up a drugs empire and oversaw protection rackets to extort money from local businesses.
Her two sons, whom she ‘schooled’ from their early teens, grew up to be feared hardmen. Detectives compared her to Violet Kray who brought up Ronnie and Reggie in the East End.
Police once found £180,000 cash hidden below floorboards and stuffed into one leg of a living room table at the family home in Mossley Hill in the suburbs of Liverpool.
Christine Fitzgibbon clutched a white handkerchief in the dock when she was given two years for money laundering in 2013. Her sons were also given lengthy sentences.
Ian Fitzgibbon himself has convictions for handling stolen goods and possession of cannabis and was jailed for 12 months in 2017 after crashing a stolen car when being chased by police at 70mph in a residential area.
After Ashley was killed, he fled to Dubai, then Spain, from where he was extradited.
The demography of Liverpool, with high levels of unemployment and deprivation means that joining a gang, even at the bottom of the food chain, is almost impossible to resist for many youngsters. The city is fuelled by drugs sourced via the vast container port.
The upshot is that violent gang culture has been tragically embedded in Liverpool for generations.
- Additional reporting: Mark Branagan and Tim Stewart
‘My life might as well have ended as well’: Full victim impact statements from Ashley Dale’s heartbroken parents
Ms Dale’s mother, Julie, told the court –
Ashley pictured with her mother on the day of her graduation
03:45 on the 21st August 2022. The day I not only lost my daughter, but my best friend. The night we got that dreaded knock that no parent or family should ever have to get.
Two police officers stood at my door, an image that will haunt me forever. I remember walking down the stairs, saying to Bobby ‘I’m scared’, I know what this means. ‘Can we come in?’, they said. Never did I think they would say these words.
‘She’s passed away,’ they said.
My life might as well have ended there too. Those three little words had just turned my lights out forever; time has since stood still.
How? Why? What’s happened? Are you sure it’s Ashley? All those questions running round my mind. Our lives had just been turned upside down in the blink of an eye. She can’t be, we only spoke a few hours ago and she was fine.
There’s been an incident at Ashley’s home. ‘She has been shot’ they said. Shaking, I fell to the floor.
The police officers left, leaving carnage behind. Myself and Bobby in total shock and disbelief. Ashley’s two younger sisters were sleeping peacefully in their beds upstairs. Then the reality set in, that I was going to have to tell them, their big sister they so adored was no longer here. Those poor innocent girls, exposed to this horrific act. How can I tell them some evil person has done this to their defenceless sister who was home alone in her place of safety. A place where they regularly spent nights staying over.
Sleeping in the bedroom where five shots had been fired, above the bed where they had slept only one week before. The horrific thought came to my mind, that we could have been here dealing with multiple murders. My whole family could have been killed that night. No thought given to who could have been in the house, one intention only: to kill.
Another sound no mother should hear – the screams of my baby girls when I told them something awful had happened to their big sister, and she had passed away. The inconsolable cries of a seven and 12-year-old, whose lights had also just been switched off.
Terrified something terrible will happen to them, we all spent the next week sleeping in the same bed. The months of sleepless nights, crying out in their sleep, shouting for their sister ‘why, why, why’ or ‘mummy, help me’. The ongoing months of therapy needed, to help my now nine-year-old process how or why this has happened. My 12-year-old forced to change school, as she felt unable to return to her old one. In fear of everyone knowing what had happened, not wanting to feel like she was in a ‘fish bowl’ with all eyes on her. Never to spend another night staying over at their big sister’s house being spoilt, or never getting to become aunties, a role that they both so looked forward too.
That night I had to do the unthinkable. Again something no mum should ever have to do. I identified my beautiful, sweet baby girl in a mortuary, lying there lifeless behind a glass screen. Unable to touch, hold or smell her. My beautiful perfect girl was now a piece of evidence.
The weeks went by and the unthinkable things continued. Choosing a coffin for my 28-year-old daughter, brochures left behind like I was choosing a piece of furniture, or shopping for an outfit for her to wear, whilst she lay dead alone in a funeral home. Planning her funeral, the most unnatural thing a parent should ever have to do. What should have been a private event broadcast on TV for the world to see. Our once private life, now in the public eye for all to see and comment.
How has this happened? Two weeks before we toasted her promotion over Sunday lunch. Ashley was so excited to start her new role and we were all so so proud of her achievements, seeing her graduate was one of the proudest moments of my life. But now the plans she had for life had been robbed from her, for an utterly senseless crime.
At 45 I’d lost my daughter, my life has changed forever. I’ve been forced to leave my job as a midwife, which I have done for the past 20 years. A career I’d worked so hard for, to better mine and Ashley’s lives, defeating the odds by going to university and getting a degree after being written off as a young mum. The sense of loss after not being unemployed since the age of 16, and the financial hardship and worry this has brought.
I hate that I won’t see her get married, have children and deliver her babies, become Nanny ‘Julie’ or grow old together like we always joked about. Often being mistaken for sisters as we were only 16 years apart. Trying to fill that void, as we spoke every day sharing everything. Getting into my car and calling her, even if she never answered, that I will never get used to. We don’t get to spend another Christmas with her, harassing me to put her tree up. Walking in on Christmas day looking like a supermodel, asking ‘when’s dinner ready?’ and I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge sweating over the stove.
We should be celebrating her 30th birthday this year, a milestone we all so looked forward to celebrating, and have that trip to New York, like we did for her 18th.
I don’t like leaving the house anymore, socialising with friends, having my photo taken, going the gym and doing all the things we once enjoyed doing as a family – I am a different mum, friend and partner now.
I don’t feel safe in my own home, fearful something terrible will happen to me or my family. My once rational mind is very irrational now. I am scared when a car drives past, or an unexpected visitor knocks at the door. I can’t sleep and when I do I wake and the reality of this nightmare hits me and Ashley dies over and over again. I take medication I never imagined myself needing just to get me through the day. Months of counselling to help process this, but what can anyone say or do to make me feel better?
This past year has been unbearable, the countless visits from police, court visits, meeting with barristers and CPS, thrust into an unknown criminal arena. I have spent the last 15 months, anticipating how or if I would cope during my daughter’s murder trial. Having to sit through endless weeks, seeing and hearing the most horrific details of how my perfect girl was left terrified asking for help, dying alone in a cold wet back yard. Hearing how you all made attempts to cover this up with lies to save yourselves, showing no remorse or compassion to me or my family. Some of you even claiming to be heartbroken and devastated, yet still you could not do the right thing. Making a mockery with the answers given as to how and why this act was carried out.
No act or person deserves to die – but this I will never ever begin to understand or accept how this could have happened to my perfect beautiful girl, who had her whole life ahead of her.
I hope you ALL understand, that I will never ever forgive you, for the life sentence you have gave to me and my family.
People speak about Justice for Ashley! But in my eyes there will never be justice, the only justice is that this would never have happened. Although I can now rest knowing that you monsters are going to pay for what you have done to me and my family. And that you too have ruined your own lives and your family’s lives. I hope my words haunt you all forever and you James Witham; I hope when you go to sleep at night you too see my baby girl’s face as I do every single night.
For My Ash, My Baby Girl, Forever 28. I love you. I Miss You. Until we meet again, Mum.
Her father, Steve Dunne, said:
Ms Dale in a family photo alongside her father, Steve
On Saturday 20th August 2022, I went to bed as normal. I didn’t realise that when I woke up, my life would never be the same again. In the early hours of the morning on Sunday 21st August 2022, I was awoken by an officer from Merseyside Police who, on confirming who I was, told me my daughter, Ashley Dale, was dead.
I can’t even begin to describe how I felt. I’d instantly been confined to a living nightmare. He then proceeded to tell me that Ashley had been shot. I remember shouting ‘no’ for a long time at the top of my voice; I couldn’t believe it – history had repeated itself.
My son, Lewis Dunne, had been shot dead seven years previous at only 16 years of age. He was shot at close range in the back with a shotgun in a case of mistaken identity; an innocent victim caught in the middle of a gang feud. It had been a long seven years of pulling myself out of some very dark – and at times, lonely – places, trying to put my life back together.
In 2022, I was expecting the arrival of my first grandson, and life seemed to be pretty positive again. It had taken a lot to get to where I was after the murder of my son, and I’d instantly been put back to day one by the actions of another. Ashley is the oldest of my three children, Lewis the youngest – both are now deceased.
I want to take this opportunity to talk about Ashley.
I couldn’t be any prouder of Ashley. She was a beautiful, intelligent, charismatic, career-driven, and family-orientated young woman. She had been through a lot with the death of her brother, but still managed throughout that ordeal and the subsequent murder trial to concentrate on her studies, graduating with a degree in environmental health. This is a testament to her strength, dedication, and intelligence. She knew what she wanted in life and worked hard to achieve it; she always did.
She loved her food and when we’d go out for family meals, it was nearly always Ashley’s choice, but we were in good hands; Ashley had good taste. Ashley had a very active social life; she was liked by everyone, so getting a timeslot on Ashley’s busy schedule could usually be guaranteed by an offer of some nice tapas, or by cooking her a nice meal.
Her favourite was steak, roast potatoes, broccoli, peas, and mushrooms; that was what she would most often ask me to cook, and we would sit, talk, and catch up for hours. I cherished every second that I spent with her. Because of the callous and cruel actions of those responsible, I will never be able to have a family meal with Ashley again. Despite this, as we saw on CCTV during the trial, Mr. Witham considered it acceptable to take Ashley’s life away – take all that from her, me, and all of her family – before spending time dining with his own young son, just two days after murdering her.
Ashley loved going to festivals but had started recently speaking to me about wanting to start a family. She knew her current relationship was not one that she wanted to bring a child into, but she just couldn’t bring herself to make that permanent break. Ashley never got the chance to be a mum, and her family have been robbed of the chance of meeting Ashley’s children, my grandchildren.
Ashley had recently been promoted to a higher position in work, which is characteristic of her ambition and dedication; but she never got the chance to take up that position and enjoy the rewards of her hard work.
The 15th November 2023 marked the eight-year anniversary of Lewis’ death; the 16th November 2023 was the seven-year anniversary of the three men responsible being found guilty of his murder. I was sitting in the very same court with my daughters’ – Ashley and Yazmin – when those verdicts were read out.
Ashley sobbed uncontrollably when the foreman delivered those verdicts; she had to live through the trauma caused not only by Lewis’ murder, but by the subsequent trial which those responsible forced upon us all by failing to admit responsibility for what they had done.
I am now sitting with my one remaining child, having been put through the trauma of yet another trial, listening to those verdicts being read out in relation to Ashley’s murder. I have lost another child; a victim of big egos running around the city with powerful guns, involved in petty feuds and killing innocent people.
Christmas 2022 should have been a happy time; the first Christmas I would get to share with my first grandson. Instead, it was the darkest place I have ever been to in my life.
I went away for a week before Christmas by myself, just to get away from everything, to try to prepare myself mentally for what I knew would be a difficult time; the first Christmas without not one, but two of my kids. I will never get it out of my head; the fear that Ashley must have felt that night, which would undoubtedly have been exacerbated by the post-traumatic stress disorder that Ashley had suffered since the death of her brother, and the pain she must have gone through after this brutal, savage act was committed against her.
These thoughts affected me most around Christmas time, when I should have been spending quality time with my children. Instead, from the 23rd to 27th December 2022 I wasn’t able to leave my house. I sat in with the curtains and blinds shut, listening to songs Ashley enjoyed; grieving, crying, and contemplating dark thoughts of whether I can live this life anymore; whether I would have the strength to go through the coming years, knowing that I’d have to do so without two of my children. My own post-traumatic stress disorder is a debilitating, lonely, and unbearable mental illness, and it’s going to take years of hard work to try to overcome this – again.
It was the first time in my life that I experienced what it actually felt like when someone can’t go on, but I knew I had to for my daughter, my grandson, and my family; I also knew I had to see justice done for Ashley.
From day one of the trial, I have not seen one single shred of remorse from any of the defendants; in fact, quite the opposite – I have felt that, throughout the trial, often during breaks in the court procedure, they have all individually behaved very disrespectfully towards myself and other members of Ashley’s family.
On that night in August, these individuals targeted Ashley’s car; they targeted Ashley’s house; they targeted Ashley – an innocent girl home along on a Saturday night, cuddled up to her beloved dog, Darla – a place where she should have been safe and happy.
This is as senseless and ruthless as it comes, and I would ask that consideration be given to imposing the maximum sentence possible on these men. Throughout the course of the trial, they have not acknowledged our pain, apologised, or shown any understanding of the impact of what they have done; they are only sorry that they have been caught. From what I’ve observed throughout the course of this trial, I don’t believe this will change any time soon, if ever.
By failing to admit responsibility, they have forced us to sit through the harrowing ordeal of yet another trial; they have consistently lied to try and avoid being punished for their actions.
These are clearly dangerous individuals, able and willing to deploy the most dangerous of automatic weapons to settle petty disputes, without any concern at all for those caught up in the crossfire. No family should ever have to go through what we have gone through; these men cannot be allowed to do this to anyone else.
Buy me a coffee