Four men have been convicted of the murder of Ashley Dale, a 28-year-old council employee who was shot dead in her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in August 2022. The victim was watching television in her pyjamas with her dog Darla when a gunman burst through her front door and fired a Skorpion submachine gun.
The attack was carried out by James Witham, who was driven to the scene by Joseph Peers. They were acting on the orders of Niall Barry, a drug trafficker known as 'Branch', who had a long-running feud with Ashley's boyfriend, Lee Harrison. The dispute originated around 2018 when a quantity of cocaine and cannabis worth £40,000 was stolen from a stash house controlled by Barry.
Tensions escalated after the Glastonbury Festival in June 2022, where Barry allegedly threatened to stab Harrison. The situation worsened following the death of Rikki Warnick, who took his own life after being bullied by Jordan Thompson, a known associate of Harrison. The murder of Ashley Dale was a case of mistaken identity, as the intended target was her boyfriend.
The four men will be sentenced on Wednesday. A fifth man, Ian Fitzgibbon, was cleared of involvement in the murder.
