‘FALSE CONFESSION’
Convicted killer agreed to take blame for Tup Tup shooting to benefit John Henry Sayers, court told
A convicted killer facing life behind bars falsely confessed to a drive-by shooting outside a Newcastle nightclub because he had “nothing to lose”, prosecutors have claimed.
Michael McDougall was jailed for life in 2016 after a jury found him guilty of shooting South Shields takeaway boss and dad-of-two Tipu Sultan.
The 32-year-old died in his father’s arms after being shot in the neck from pointblank range with a sawn-off shotgun at his shop in April 2015.
McDougall is now on trial at the Old Bailey in London, accused of falsely claiming to be responsible for the drive-by shooting of a doorman at Tup Tup Palace “in order to benefit John Henry Sayers”.
Prosecutors claim that McDougall, 50, came into contact with Sayers while in HMP Wakefield last year.
Sayers had been remanded in custody and was awaiting trial for allegedly ordering the Tup Tup Palace shooting in June 2015, because his son had been thrown out of the club and punched by a doorman in an altercation at the club two weeks earlier. Prosecuting barrister Simon Denison QC told the jury that McDougall “won’t even be considered for release until he is in his 80s, so there is a good chance that he is going to spend the rest of his life behind bars”. He added: “This is why we say he has nothing to lose by telling lies to help John Henry Sayers.” The court heard that in August 2017, McDougall’s solicitor wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service, suggesting he be interviewed under caution by police in relation to the Tup Tup Palace shooting. During interviews a month later, McDougall told police he had carried out the shooting. Mr Denison said: “He said he had been approached at the last minute and asked to act as a gunman in a drive-by shooting. “He told police that he was offered £5,000 in cash and a substantial quantity of cocaine in payment, and that he was happy to do it.” But the trial heard that “time and time again, he was unable to provide basic or checkable details about the shooting that he claimed to have carried out”.
Mr Denison said: “He also emphatically denied having seen any evidence in relation to this shooting, maintaining throughout his account was based purely on his own recollection.”
The prosecution claim that MCDougall’s account was “a pack of lies told to benefit John Henry Sayers”.
The jury were told that police accessed a recording of McDougall’s call to a friend on June 23, 2017.
It included McDougall telling his friend he had been for exercise and that “I normally just walk round with that f ****** John Sayers”.
He added that Sayers is “the only f ****** decent Geordie in the jail”.
Mr Denison told the court that on July 27, 2017, Sayers and McDougall were in a holding cell waiting for a solicitor to arrive.
“Mr Sayers had with him a laptop that he was allowed to have, that had all the evidence in this case so that he could prepare for his trial, and he had a file of documents.”
The jury was shown some CCTV footage of Sayers and McDougall in that room.
Mr Denison said: “The camera
recorded McDougall sitting next to Sayers, and together them watching something on the screen, both pointing to the screen at various times as it played.
“There is no doubt, and no dispute, that that was footage of Sayers showing McDougall evidence in this case.
“And it flies in the face of McDougall’s denials to the police that he had seen any of the evidence.”
The jury also saw a transcript of another phone call between McDougall and his friend Paul Maudling, in which McDougall said he was going to be arrested again for “another shooting”.
After telling him, “I’m getting blamed,” his friend replied, “Ah, you’re getting the blame are you?”
McDougall then said: “What are they ganna dee, take me telly off us?”
And when he was asked in police interviews how his confession to the shooting would affect him, he said “it wouldn’t cause us much bother”.
The prosecution also highlighted a transcript of a conversation between Sayers and his son on the prison telephone on September 7 2017, before McDougall was interviewed.
In it, Sayers’ son said: “If he takes it from you I’ll be happy,” and “if he gets the blame for it then I’ll be happy.”
Mr Denison said: “The prosecution suggest that that brief passage of conversation was about what McDougall was about to do.
“And in that conversation, as with McDougall’s own conversation to his friend on the phone, the word ‘blame’ was used, rather than what you might think would be a more obvious word to use if what he was doing was owning up to what he had done ‘confess’ or ‘own up.’”
The prosecution claim that the gunman who carried out the shooting at Tup Tup Palace was actually Michael Dixon, a “long-time friend and associate” of Sayers.
On the second day of the trial, Mr Denison said phone data from the day of the shooting shows Dixon made trips to Ashington, allegedly “to collect and then return the sawnoff shotgun and ammunition”.
Mr Denison said Dixon also made calls to Sayers before and after the shooting “because it was John Henry Sayers who had recruited Dixon to carry out that shooting, as revenge for the insult to his family name that he saw the treatment of his son on May 23, 2015 at the nightclub to have been”.
The court heard that when Sayers was arrested and interviewed in connection with the shooting in February 2017, he only spoke “to make it clear he didn’t trust the police”, and accused them of being “corrupt”.
He told officers: “I’ll say one thing. I have never asked anybody, especially Mickey Dixon, to shoot anybody, ok, that’s all I’m saying.”
Sayers, 54, of Fossway, Byker, and Dixon, of no fixed address but from Walker, are now on trial accused of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess a firearm.
Former doorman Russell Sturman, 26, of Gosforth, is also facing trial for allegedly assisting an offender by “providing important information to Mr Sayers before the shooting”.
Sayers and McDougall are also jointly charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
All four defendants deny the charges against them. The trial continues.