How boyfriend drug feud led to Ashley Dale's death

Lee Harrison did not pull the trigger of the sub-machine gun that killed his partner of five years in August 2022.

But the chain of events that led to the death of 28-year-old Ashley Dale in the Old Swan area of Liverpool was entirely rooted in his involvement in the drug trade.

His total refusal to co-operate after the murder earned him the contempt of Ms Dale's family, who said his behaviour had increased their torment.

Harrison, now 27, is now serving a five-year prison sentence for selling crack-cocaine and heroin across north-west England and north Wales in 2024 - two years after Ms Dale was killed.

On Friday, James Allison, senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service Mersey-Cheshire's Complex Casework Unit revealed how after her murder, and despite having no assets in his name or money in his bank account, Harrison left the country on multiple occasions travelling to Dubai, Thailand and Spain.

But he was arrested back in Liverpool on 25 November last year, in possession of a cheap Nokia mobile phone used to advertise the sale of Class A drugs.

In his bedroom in Liverpool Road, Huyton, was a kilogram block of cocaine worth about £11,000.

For Ms Dale's mother, Julie Dale, his continued involvement in the kind of criminal activity that caused her death proved he "clearly thought nothing of Ash".

In the only face-to-face meetings with his girlfriend's mum after her death, Harrison kept up the same façade he had presented to police, suggesting maybe a previous tenant of the house had been the target.

But, during the trial of five men charged with Ms Dale's murder, it became clear Harrison would have been keenly aware of who may have wanted him dead.

The prosecution outlined clear evidence of a highly charged feud with his former friend - fellow drug trafficker Niall Barry.

The origin of the row turned out to be rooted in a years' old falling out over a burglary at a stash-house controlled by Barry, where drugs worth about £40,000 were stolen.

Harrison was associated with a gang known to police and the local community as the Hillsiders, named after the Hillside area of Huyton where he had grown up, the court heard.

Jurors were told that Barry had discovered the Hillsiders had stolen his drugs, and was angry that Harrison refused to weigh in on his behalf.

The row appeared to re-ignite when Barry and his associate Sean Zeisz had a row with Harrison and his friend, Jordan Thompson, at Glastonbury music festival in July 2022.

The court heard Mr Thompson had punched Zeisz, while Barry had been overheard making threats to "stab up" Harrison.

Things escalated further when a man called Rikki Warnick took his own life later the same month.

Messages between Barry and Zeisz, recovered by police, suggested that they had come to believe that Mr Warnick had been "bullied" by Mr Thompson - a member of the Hillsiders known by his street name Dusty, the trial was told.

Zeisz also discovered Mr Thompson was seeing his ex-girlfriend, the court heard.

It was against this background of organised crime and petty personal slights that Barry and Zeisz formed a plan to harm Harrison - although the exact catalyst was unclear.

Prosecutors narrated the dispute partly by playing voice-notes recorded by Ms Dale that she had shared with friends - outlining her mounting anxiety about the "beef" between the two men.

In one, she described how if the two men encountered each other "one of them is gonna end up in a bad way".

In another, she told a friend she had asked Harrison to be "honest about everything" so she could prepare for "the worst".

On 21 August 2022, at about 00:30 BST, a two-man team dispatched by Barry and Zeisz from a flat in Pilch Lane, Huyton, arrived at Ms Dale's home in Leinster Road.

James Witham, armed with a Skorpion machine-pistol capable of emptying its magazine in less than a second, took the front-door off its hinges and sprayed the inside of the house with bullets.

Outside, getaway driver Joseph Peers, once a promising boxer, waited for Witham to return.

Ms Dale was fatally wounded as she tried to flee out of a back door.

After his sentencing on Friday, Ms Dale's mother Julie said Harrison's behaviour had been "one of the hardest parts I have had to deal with".

She said: "I still cannot comprehend how he and his family can be so callous and dismissive of us."

Barry, Zeisz, Witham and Peers were all convicted of Ms Dale's murder and related offences and jailed for life with minimum terms ranging from 41 years to 48 years in 2023.

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