Dad ‘hunted down and murdered in revenge attack’
COURT TOLD EX-PARTNER, HER BROTHER AND OTHERS DROVE TO MERSEYSIDE TO ‘SMACK VICTIM’S HEAD IN’ AFTER HE SENT ABUSIVE TEXTS
A dad-of-one was hunted down by members of two Manchester families in a revenge killing, a court heard.
Warren Glover was found unconscious on Merseyside on June 13 last year.
Prosecutors allege the 33-yearold was the victim of a revenge attack, carried out by the family of his ex-partner Melissa Stubbs.
They say he was hit with a ‘weapon’ by her brother Aaron Stubbs. Mr Glover died in hospital three weeks later on July 7.
Melissa and Aaron Stubbs, their friend Stephen Strutt and Strutt’s brother-in-law, Peter Walker, are accused of travelling in a car together from Manchester to Merseyside, and committing a “joint enterprise” murder. They all deny the charges.
A jury at Liverpool Crown Court were shown photographs of Mr Glover, who is said to have died from “unsurvivable injuries.”
Tania Griffiths, QC, prosecuting, said the fatal injury had been caused by a blow with a weapon delivered with “severe force.”
Jurors heard Mr Glover, and Melissa, 30, had a “short intense relationship,” during which he proposed to her in Venice in September 2019. Ms Griffiths said they separated that November but Mr Glover was close to her young son, who had begun calling him ‘daddy.’
The court heard Mr Glover had a son from an earlier relationship but had contact issues with the boy’s mother.
Ms Griffiths said he had also started seeing a woman called Jemma Cragg at the turn of 2020.
However, she said Mr Glover and Melissa had arranged to meet on June 12 and were ‘speaking about how much they would like to get back together again.’
Ms Griffiths said the ‘sticking point’ was when Melissa suspected he was seeing someone else, which he denied. The court heard the meeting never happened and by June 13, they had fallen out.
Ms Griffiths said: “Warren Glover started to send nasty and abusive texts to Melissa and her parents, Frank and Gail. But worst of all they were about her son.”
She added: “There is no doubt, members of the jury, that you will be appalled by the nastiness of many of those texts. But we say that was no justification for killing him.
“You will also hear that Warren
Glover had mental health issues at the time, was upset over not seeing his son, and was drinking to excess and had been drinking before he sent those texts.”
Ms Griffiths alleged Melissa, Frank Stubbs and Gail Duff discussed the texts and made Aaron, 30, aware of them, which caused the quartet ‘to come over from Manchester to Thatto Heath and murder Warren Glover.’
She said: “Aaron and Melissa Stubbs told him that they were coming to ‘smack his head in’ and that, we say, is precisely what happened.” Mr Glover made a 999 call just before 9.15pm, an hour before he was fatally injured, when he told police of ‘a threat to my life.’
He said a Kia Sportage was coming from Manchester.
Mr Glover told the operator: “Aaron Stubbs said he’s going to come down and rip my head off.” All four defendants claim they were going on an innocent journey to collect Melissa’s belongings. The prosecutor said Aaron Stubbs texted Mr Glover: “We’re here, come on big man, I’ll go to your nan’s and find out where you are... you’re a p***y.”
The court heard that Mr Glover told them he was in French Street.
Ms Griffiths said Mr Glover went into Miss Cragg’s house and armed himself with a hammer and a crowbar, the latter of which she took off him, saying she was going to phone the police.
Miss Cragg told police that Mr Glover was ‘on his way to meet them . . . with a lump hammer.’
While giving the details, she said: “He’s been knocked, he’s, oh my god hurry up he needs an ambulance.”
Ms Griffiths said it appeared Mr Glover saw the Kia, then smashed its windscreen and front passenger window with the hammer.
She said: “He was then chased down the street and assaulted, fatally, while he was running away.
The prosecution claim that Melissa and her father then ‘started to rewrite history’ in an attempt to create alibis.
Ms Griffiths said a variety of evidence put all four defendants accused of murder at the scene.
Melissa and Aaron Stubbs, both of Lane End Road, Burnage; Strutt, of Chester Avenue, Stalybridge; and Walker, of Garth Road, Wythenshawe, all deny murder.
Strutt’s girlfriend Sarah Clark, of Chester Avenue, Stalybridge, denies assisting an offender.
●
He was chased down the street and assaulted, fatally, while he was running away Prosecutor Tania Griffiths QC