Text messages ‘to organise

TEXT messages exchanged between men alleged to have stormed a 65-year-old farmer’s home and shot him in his knee and foot revealed talk of “getting the boys together,” a court heard.

A gang-of-six are accused of being part of a violent raid on Charles Baldwin’s bungalow in Aughton, during which they kneecapped him and also fired a bullet into his foot as they plundered his valuables.

The victim was sleeping in his summerhouse when the hooded armed gang blasted his “patio doors off”, causing him to duck, and “very nearly killing me,” he said.

The pig farmer was then “frogmarched” into his house, in front of his partner, and forced to sit at his office desk, at gunpoint, to retrieve his cash box, family jewellery and four firearms which he kept at the property, Preston Crown Court heard.

Prosecutors described how Mr Baldwin was once shot in the knee for not moving quickly enough through the home and then his foot, which remains at risk of amputation.

The jury has heard of text messages sent between a group of men who are standing trial accused of the robbery on the evening of July 28, 2019.

Francis McEntee, prosecuting, detailed how the day before the raid, Reynolds sent a message to Hemmings, which said: “Have to get the boys together today, mate. “We box this for ye[sic].” Mr McEntee told the jury: “The prosecution say that the first of these messages is Reynolds confirmation that “the boys” were being gathered together, with messages later in the day indicating that Reynolds was awaiting news as to whether another “mate” was to join the boys.”

Later that day, it is alleged, Reynolds, sent a message, which said: “Any news on are[sic] mate, Al?”

The prosecution say this is a reference to Alan Daniels, said to be the man who twice shot Mr Baldwin, and whose DNA was found on a knife used to cut a gold bracelet from the farmer’s wrist, who has admitted his involvement.

Other messages showed, it was heard, how