The senseless murders of innocent women and children has shed new light on the brutal reality of the drugs trade Liverpool.
Eastern European battlefield weapons were used in the killings of Ashley Dale and Elle Edwards. They were mistakenly gunned down within weeks of each other in 2022 by gangsters targeting rivals. Nine-year-old Olivia-Pratt Korbel was murdered in August that year by Thomas Cashman, who chased rival drug dealer Joseph Nee into her home, firing handguns indiscriminately. Britain’s seventh largest city, Liverpool plays an outsized role in the importing of drugs, primarily cocaine.
It’s top-level criminals have built links with drugs kingpins abroad including the powerful Irish Kinahan gang and feared Colombian cartels.
In recent years, traditional gang hierarchies have broken down and criminals have adapted – working together, even with former enemies, to maximise profits from the cocaine trade. Thefts of drugs – real or suspected – are common and often lead to fatal consequences. The recent trials of the killers of Ashley, Elle and nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, although not directly connected, showed how the killers often went to the same schools and moved in the same circles.
Elle Edwards (Liverpool Echo)
Ashley Dale (PA)The same surnames recur in court stories, tell tale signs of the crime families whose members follow the same path down the generations. Underlining the callous disregard the gangsters show the victims and the their families, Cashman, now 35, refused to enter the dock for sentencing when he was jailed for life in May. Kim Alcock, Olivia’s aunt, told the Mirror: “This is the area that they live in. We grew up two streets down and we know what it’s like, this area is riddled with crime but no one seems wants to change it. It’s still the ‘no grass’ culture and it always will be, it’s still going on right under the police’s noses.”
Gangsters ‘call for ceasefire’ after deadly Christmas Eve pub shooting
Thomas Cashman, the convicted killer of Olivia Pratt-Korbel (PA)
Connor Chapman (PA)Council worker Ashley, 28, was murdered in her own home with a Skorpion submachine gun on August 21 last year. Four men aged 28 to 41 were this week jailed for life for a total of 173 years for her murder. Ashley’s dad, who has already lost a teenage son to gun crime on the streets of Merseyside said in his victim impact statement: “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.” His son, Ashley’s stepbrother, Lewis, 16, was also killed by mistake by a group of men who shot him in the back at close range, eight years ago.
Sean Zeisz, Niall Barry, Joseph Peers and James Witham (left to right) were convicted of killing Ashley (PA)Ashley’s mum Julie said: “The casual nature as well, of the details we have heard about how these people are obtaining guns, it was like a shopping list. You feel like it’s just normal to them. It’s a scary world.” Connor Chapman, 23, was jailed for a minimum of 48 years after opening fire on a pub on Christmas Eve, killing Elle Edwards, 26, and injuring five others. Chapman was convicted in July following the horrific attack in the Lighthouse Inn pub in Wallasey, . The court heard how the gangster was at war with another gang on based on the opposite side of the M53 motorway.
The same Czech-made battlefield Skorpion weapon pistol, capable of firing 15 rounds a second, was used in what was the third murder on Merseyside in just over four months last year. The first victim, Sam Rimmer, 22, was gunned down in Dingle on August 16. Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, Serena Kennedy, said earlier this year: “I am concerned about the type of weaponry that we’re seeing on the streets of Merseyside. We are seeing the impact of those weapons on the streets. We know that they’ve been used eight times over the past two years.”
A cartridge casing recovered after the murder of Elle Edwards (PA)Glenn Lawrence, chief technical officer at firearms and law enforcement consultancy Arquebus Solutions, said: “Skorpion machine pistols have been here for some time - they were here in at least the early 2000’s. They have become more common in recent years. This is in part due to the prevalence of deactivated or converted Skorpions which are for sale in Europe then being ‘reactivated’ or converted again. The deactivation standards in some of these countries are quite poor and offer a low barrier to reactivation. Unfortunately, criminal groups routinely convert them back to fire their original purpose ammunition for use in crime and traffic them throughout Europe where they probably fetch a high price given they have automatic firing capability.”
We’ve been told of one shipment of Czech military weapons into Merseyside in the mid-90s. One former Liverpool youth team footballer, who got dropped from the squad, then drifted into crime. He ended up doing prison time in Amsterdam, where he allegedly met the nephew of a general in the Czech army. A source said: “The army hadn’t been paid for months and so they formed a plan. The general would open the doors of the armoury. After his release, he crossed the channel and drove to the Czech republic with a fleet of Bedford Rascals. They were fitted with false bottoms and were filled with military grade Czech made weaponry. They returned to Liverpool with semi-automatic weapons, rocket launchers, grenades. He always said these ended up hidden under garden sheds across the city. Grenades got into the hands of gangs like the Huyton crew. One was left outside the home of Kenny Dalglish.”
Skorpion gun (PA)The source linked the violence that erupted in Liverpool two years ago to the success of Operation Venetic, the National Crime Agency led response to the hack of the criminal Encrochat phone network in 2020. Out of 10,000 UK criminals who used these expensive phones, confident their encrypted messages could not be read by police, the Mirror understands nearly 900 were found to be linked to Merseyside.
The source said: “All the top boys who were in charge were arrested or disappeared. As a result of that, it left a power vacuum. Those guys are still running things from inside or from abroad. But it left the young guys they recruited to do their dirty work. You can see, almost to the month, the uptick in violence. These extremely dangerous military grade machine guns don’t behave the way you expect them to. There is a hell of a recoil and they have to be held properly. You need to be trained, basically, or it is just indiscriminate shooting.”
Map outlining the large area of mass drugs crime (Internet Unknown)Dr Robert Hesketh, lecturer at the School of Justice Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, agreed the Encrochat raids played a role. But he said: “I think it’s unfair to focus just on Liverpool. We’ve seen incidents in other parts of the country. But we live in a world of conspicuous consumption and it is easy to be able to get drawn into that world of easy money. The community is worried about what has happened. Parents are concerned.
There needs to be a change. “But some people are attracted to it. I’ve spoken to the women who are involved with these individuals. They tell me, ‘I know what he does but I don’t know what he does, if you get my drift’. They are thrill-seekers.”
Merseyside Police have said that the number of firearms discharges since April are down 78 per cent on the same period the previous year. The number of homicides have dropped from 16 in a year to two. But while firearms discharges in London have fallen by two thirds since 2010, in Merseyside they remain stubbornly high.
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