Thug jailed after drive by shooting
AN armed gang ‘hunted’ down a Ford Focus in a high-speed chase through Runcorn and blasted the back of the car with a sawn off shotgun in a drive-by shooting.
On Tuesday at Chester Crown Court, one of the four men in the pursuing Mazda 3 was sent down after he admitted being in the Mazda and to having stashed the sawn off firearm in bushes.
Sean Meadows, 30, formerly of Oxford Street, Widnes, was initially accused of being the triggerman but denied it was him, and instead later pleaded guilty on December 4 last year to possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence on the basis he hid the weapon.
Meadows was arrested on June 22, 2018, a few days after mayhem had shattered the peace of Runcorn Old Town at around 8.30am on Tuesday, June 19, 2018.
Brett Williamson, prosecuting, said businesses including an artisan were opening up and children were walking to school, when the car chase began over on Percival Lane.
He said CCTV filmed the Mazda 3 heading from Barnton, Northwich, to Runcorn that morning, before patrolling Percival Lane in search of a Ford Focus that contained three men.
Tearing through the streets at speed, the Ford’s driver Thomas Wilson, who the court heard was of ‘good character’, lost control of the car at the junction of Bridge Street and Halton Road, when the Focus rammed the Mazda and a gunman leaned from the window and shot the Ford’s back lights with the sawn off shotgun.
Mr Williamson said: “A pursuit ensued during which one of the males in the Mazda 3 car, hooded, leant out of the window of the passenger side, he leaned out from about the waist up and he discharged a firearm, as it transpires a shotgun.”
A firearms officer estimated that the gun was fired from about five to 20 metres, most likely from a 12-bore shotgun with a shortened barrel.
Mr Williamson said Mr Wilson was of good character and panicked ‘in fear’.
He said: “He describes in his witness statement losing control of the car, his car, when he was trying to get away.
“He lost control on a sharp right-hand bend, his engine cut out.
“The occupants in his car were shouting for him to go but the car wouldn’t go. Panic was setting in.
“He describes thinking he was going to get shot.
“He saw the Mazda in his rear mirror and it rammed the rear of his vehicle.”
He added: “It was a Tuesday morning.
“One of the members of the public in fact taking their children to school was present on the road during the pursuit and both vehicles were at speed to pass her vehicle.”
CCTV filmed the Mazda head up Picton Avenue and pull up.
Meadows then emerged from the Mazda’s front passenger seat carrying a blue bag and headed towards Rock Park before returning empty-handed to the car, which then pulled away.
He would later admit that the bag contained the shotgun, which was never recovered by the authorities.
After his arrest on June 22, 2018, he answered no comment in interview.
He was initially charged on the basis he was the shooter, but Meadows denied this and pleaded guilty on December 4, 2019, to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence on the basis that he hid the gun, but was not the shooter.
Mr Williamson said friction between the two groups of men stemmed from a prior dispute between Ford passenger Keelan Densmore and ‘a man with a scouse accent’, and a meeting had been due to take place to ‘resolve whatever dispute it was they had’.
Nick Cartmell, defending, said the shooting was over a row over a woman at a house party, and was therefore a ‘domestic dispute that had got out of hand’.
He objected to the prosecution’s assertion that the shooting was ‘gangsterism’, nothing more.
The defence barrister said Meadows had stayed out of trouble since 2015 but lost his job, home and girlfriend after allegations over an unconnected matter surfaced in 2017 and he then fell in with a bad crowd. He also asked for credit for his client’s guilty plea and said that although Meadows was initially accused of being the shooter, he said prosecutors now accepted that Meadows had not fired the gun.
Mr Cartmell added that although his client’s criminal record involved ‘one or two offences of him going around with sticks or bats, there’s never been the infliction of violence at all’.
He added: “He asked me to apologise for what he’s done.”
Judge Nicholas Woodward sentenced Meadows to nine years in prison with one year on extended licence due to being deemed to be dangerous.
The charge carried a potential sentencing range of five to 10 years.
Meadows will serve six years behind bars before being considered for parole.
Judge Woodward noted that Meadows had been on trial over an unnconnected matter and found not guilty the day before his sentencing over the shotgun, and dock officers had requested a secure dock throughout the trial due to problems with Meadows.
He added that Meadows had admitted the shotgun was fired with ‘lethal potential’.
During his sentencing remarks, he said: “You were in a car with three other men and you were hunting for a particular car. When that vehicle was found it was in a residential area, it was chased and during that chase one of the occupants of your car wearing a hood leant out of the car with a sawn off shotgun and whilst still in that residential area, with members of the public about including children, the firearm was discharged at close range at that other vehicle.
“Both vehicles were travelling at high speed.”
He added: “I say nothing about your record other than it’s a very poor record.
“You have many serious previous convictions and in particular there’s a conviction, albeit some time ago, you went into a person’s house with weapons intending to rob him.”
Meadows voiced his objection to the sentence and could be heard shouting as he headed down to the cells.
On Monday, the day before his sentencing, Meadows was found not guilty at trial of robbery, Section 18 assault causing grievous bodily harm, causing actual bodily harm and two counts of weapons possession over a robbery on the footbridge between Hallwood Park and Beechwood in Runcorn at around 7.30pm on January 23, 2017, in which Stephen Currie, now 42, was robbed for his motorbike and suffered a gruesome injury after being stabbed through the eye with what he said was a snooker cue.
The blow left Mr Currie blind in one eye and partially paralysed suffering speech and walking difficulties.
Mr Currie said he identified Meadows as the attacker after hearing the names of who might have been involved and looking him up on Facebook.
He said he pulled the snood and hood off the face of his attacker long enough to see the face.
Mr Currie’s friend Liam Morley, who suffered a broken wrist and was knocked out during the robbery, which involved
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The attack, whoever committed it, left Mr Currie in hospital for five months and two weeks.
Meadows denied being at the scene and was acquitted of all charges in that case.
Mr Cartmell challenged the reliability of the testimony £588 £685 and evidence including over the length of time since the incident and the midwinter evening footbridge visibility.
He also told the court that Mr Currie’s identification of Meadows as his attacker had been directed by him receiving names of people allegedly involved while he was in hospital and he challenged what he said was a contradiction between a detective’s notebook entry that said
Mr Currie, while in hospital, had said his friend Mr Morley had mentioned Meadows’s name several times, and Mr Morley’s testimony that he had not communicated with Mr Currie while in hospital.
Mr Cartmell said the identification process had been ‘polluted, tinted, contaminated’, a claim Mr Morley branded ‘bulls***’ when he took to the witness stand last Wednesday.
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