Horror in Eastbank Street ‘I’m not sorry for shooting Jopson’
SHOTGUN thug Jamie Bridge revealed the reasons behind the Christmas shooting in Southport town centre.
He told jurors that he wanted to put rival drug dealer Christopher Jopson in hospital for threatening him with guns and robbing and stabbing his underling, Simon Dunn.
The dad-of-one, who has a son from a past relationship, said that he moved to Southport to stay with his new girlfriend, Julia Minicka.
He said Mr Jopson was “jealous” of the money he made from selling cannabis and threatened him and his mum and threatened to shoot Ms Minicka.
Bridge said: “He said if I didn’t stop selling drugs in the Southport area he will blow her head off.”
He said he heard Mr Jopson “cocking” a gun on the phone and he came to her flat with others, asked for him and kicked the door.
He said that he and Miss Minicka moved into the town’s Vincent Hotel on December 19 and 20, after a friend, Simon Dunn, was stabbed.
Bridge said that he was called from Mr Dunn’s phone at 1.15am on December 15, but it was Mr Jopson, who said “you’re not out tonight are you?” and hung up.
He said he found out Mr Jopson stabbed Mr Dunn and because of his “anger”, got a gun from a friend on December 21, “just to hurt him”.
Bridge said he had it for “protection”, adding: “It was either going to be me dead or... It was either going to go one way or the other.”
CCTV footage shows masked Bridge chasing Mr Jopson and firing the sawn-off shotgun in Eastbank Street, before fleeing on a bike.
Prosecutors suggest the gunman then hid at Miss Minicka’s flat.
Mr Jopson had shotgun pellets removed from his head at hospital, while Mr Armstrong suffered wounds to his head and left shoulder. Bridge said he tried to get close to Mr Jopson “so I didn’t injure no-one else around him”, then “aimed at his leg”.
Asked about injuring Mr Armstrong, he said: “I feel sorry for him and his family. I regret it every day of my life.”
Bridge accepted telling “a pack of lies” to police and swearing on his son’s life when denying being involved.
He said: “If I wanted to kill him I would have got up close to him and done it properly.”
He said Mr Jopson was “the one who caused all this” and the shooting was justified by his threats and stabbing Mr Dunn.
Bridge confirmed he offered to have the gun handed into police, in exchange for the attempted murder charge being dropped.
The dealer said: “I’m sorry for the people I affected, but I’m not sorry for what I did to Jopson.”
He accepted Mr Dunn was a “smackhead” who dealt cannabis for him and Mr Jopson “shivved” and “taxed” him, taking £400 meant for him. Bridge denied that it was “a drugs turf war over who controls Southport” but he accepted that it was “an escalating war between rival drug dealers”.
He said that Mr Jopson previously attacked Dunn with a hammer and he got a shotgun to “teach him a lesson”, wanting