WITNESS APPEARS AT MASSEY MURDER TRIAL
WITNESS TELLS MURDER TRIAL ABOUT WEAPON’S ‘EXTENDED MAGAZINE’
SALFORD ‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey was shot dead – probably with an Uzi – by a gunman wearing combat gear akin to a soldier from the video game Call Of Duty, a witness has told a murder trial.
Father-of-five Mr Massey, 55, was blasted outside his home on Manchester Road in Clifton, Salford, on July 25, 2015. A jury has heard how he dived for cover behind bins as a gunman fired 18 rounds at him.
The alleged gunman, Mark Fellows, 38, from Warrington, and his alleged ‘spotter’ Steven Boyle, 35, from Heywood, deny murdering Mr Massey and his friend John Kinsella, 53, on May 5 this year.
On day five of the trial at Liverpool Crown Court, the jury heard from a witness who was parked in a car with his partner at the Clifton Neighbourhood Centre, opposite Mr Massey’s home, when the shooting happened.
Prosecutors say Mr Fellows cycled to an area behind the community centre before going on foot to gun down Mr Massey moments after the target had got out of his BMW outside the gates of his home on Manchester Road.
The shooting was part of a ‘war’ between a gang called The A Team and another gang, the trial has heard.
Witness Matthew Jones said he heard loud banging and saw ‘Paul’ dive for cover behind bins.
In a police video interview played in court, Mr Jones told police: “I heard banging and looked over at his house and saw someone on the driveway and Paul dived behind the bins.
“The guy who shot at him looked like he was walking backwards off his drive and then when he went behind the bins he went back up to get a better shot at him.”
He described how there was a young girl at a bus stop at the time of the shooting and she started to ‘walk away.’
The gunman was moving quickly but ‘wasn’t running’ as he escaped down the side of the car park along a fence between the community centre and the graveyard at St Anne’s Church, said Mr Jones. He said he pulled onto the main Manchester Road ‘to get away if I needed to’ and described how moments later two cars pulled up and ‘three or four guys jumped out.’
The gunman wore a green fishing cap and khaki ‘combat gear’ which was like something worn in the video game Call Of Duty, according to Mr Jones.
They were armed with a ‘large pistol’ possibly an Uzi which fired about 10 single shots, the witness told police.
Mr Jones said the weapon wasn’t an automatic and he knew Uzi guns from video games while the weapon also had an ‘extended magazine.’
Mr Jones said he had never met Mr Massey or seen him before.
He said: “I saw him duck down and the guy was just on the drive shooting at him. I just saw him jump like behind his bins and the guy was backing off and then he moved a little bit closer to get a better shot.”
Mr Kinsella, who was a pall-bearer at Mr Massey’s funeral, was shot dead in similar circumstances as he and his partner walked their dogs near their home in Rainhill, Merseyside, close the junction seven of the M62, on May 5.
The jurors have been told that both men ‘had a serious criminal history.’
Proceeding