Drug users are fuelling violence, warn police

POLICE chiefs yesterday warned recreational drug users were fuelling streetlevel battles now being fought with fearsome ‘ battlefield’ weaponry. Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed in one of five fatal shootings in Merseyside last year, including three in the space of a week. Police bosses said disgust at her death should prompt weekend revellers in cities far from Liverpool to wake up to the part they unwittingly played in the tragedy by using class A drugs. Merseyside Assistant chief Constable Chris Green said: ‘Everyone involved in the chain is responsible.

‘If there wasn’t demand there wouldn’t be supply.’ Council worker Ashley Dale, 28, was killed in the back garden of her home in Old Swan, Liverpool less than 48 hours earlier.

On Christmas Eve, 26-year-old beautician Elle Edwards was fatally injured when a gunman opened fire outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey.

Like Olivia, neither Ms Dale or Ms Edwards is believed to have been the intended victim.

Both were killed by Czechmanufactured Skorpion machine pistols capable of firing at a rate of 850 rounds a minute. So too was 22-year- old Sam Rimmer, who was killed in the same week as Olivia and Ms Dale.

These weapons have been involved in eight shootings in the past two years in Merseyside.

Bought legally in European countries, blank-firing or deactivated weapons can be smuggled across the Channel and converted into firing live rounds in illicit back-street gun factories.

Merseyside Chief Constable

Serena Kennedy said the impact of such weapons on the city’s streets was ‘frightening’.

‘Let’s face it, people aren’t going out and being trained on how to use those weapons,’ she said yesterday.

Olivia’s shooting was just one of 49 ‘ reckless’ firearm discharges in the city in 2022.

Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Kameen, who led the appeals to catch Olivia’s killer, said: ‘Any one of those could have resulted in another homicide. We had people firing at cars driving past, putting bullets through windows or people’s front doors – anyone could be behind.

‘That’s just the madness and complete lack of moral compass these people have we are dealing with.’

Mr Kameen added that bringing ‘battlefield military weaponry into communities’ inevitably risks deadly consequences for innocent people.