Man ‘linked to the execution of gangland boss by fitness tracker’
AN ALLEGED hitman’s fitness tracker linked him to the cold-blooded execution of a gangland boss, a court heard yesterday.
Mark Fellows, 38, was first arrested on suspicion of murdering a Liverpool gangster in May.
But his Garmin watch also placed him near the home of Salford “Mr Big” Paul Massey before he was shot dead three years earlier, it was claimed.
His Garmin Forerunner recorded how its wearer had been at the scene to plan the hit, Liverpool crown court heard.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney QC said: “A few months before the murder of Paul Massey, the wearer of the watch, Mark Fellows, had travelled a route from his home to the area behind the church in which the killer lay in wait.
“Mark Fellows then spent eight minutes in that area, before returning home.
“This was plainly, the Crown suggest, a reconnaissance run.”
Massey died in a hail of sub-machine gun bullets outside his home in Gtr Manchester after returning home from a weekend away in North Wales with partner Louise Lydiate.
Mr Greaney told the jury: “He then began to walk up the drive towards the front door of his home.
“As he did so, a man ran across the road from the area of a churchyard, where he had been lying in wait.
“He produced a sub-machine gun, probably of a type manufactured by the Israeli company Uzi, and began to shoot Paul Massey.
“Paul Massey ran for cover behind bins and was able to use his mobile telephone to call friends and the emergency services.”
He added that the gunman chased Massey and fired at him several more times, adding: “What had happened was a stone cold murder.”
The killer escaped and police failed to identify a possible suspect until May when pal Kinsella was shot dead in front of his partner Wendy Owen near his home in Rainhill, Merseyside.
Mr Greaney said the couple were walking along a footpath when a cyclist wearing a hi-vis jacket came from behind and shot Kinsella twice in the back.
Ms Owen charged at the man and he shot at her but missed, the court heard.
He then went closer to Kinsella and shot him twice in the back of the head.
Mr Greaney added: “There can be no doubt that John Kinsella was the principal target of this attack. The cyclist then made good his escape.
“The killing of John Kinsella was another stone cold murder.”
Earlier Mr Greaney had told the jury Massey and Kinsella were “friends and associates” and both had a “serious criminal history”.
He said: “Moreover, each was well known, if not notorious, within the gangland of the North West and both men undoubtedly had enemies.
“Their undoing has to do with events in the city of Salford, where serious violence broke out between two criminal gangs in 2015.”
He said both murders were linked to a turf war between a gang called The A Team — linked to Massey through his pal Stephen Britton — and a rival crew headed up by a man named Michael Carroll.
Fellows and co-defendant Steven Boyle, 35, were arrested over the Kinsella murder after being tracked in CCTV footage.
Boyle, whose Renault Clio was seen in the area before the murder, is accused of acting as a spotter for Fellows.
The prosecution said the men had also gone to Kinsella’s home in April but failed to carry out the hit as Kinsella and Ms Owen had taken the dogs for a walk earlier than expected.
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Fellows, of Warrington, Cheshire, and Boyle, of Heywood, Gtr Manchester, both deny two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, continues.
RUN AT KILLER
JOHN Kinsella’s partner Wendy Owen bravely “charged” at the hitman who had gunned him down — then ran for her life as he fired at her too, the jury was told.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney QC said a man on a mountain bike had shot Kinsella twice in the back with a hand gun. Mr Greaney said when he fired again and missed Ms Owen she escaped by jumping over a fence on to the hard shoulder of the M62.
He added: “It is clear that the plan included an intention to murder Wendy Owen, either to silence a witness or to send out a particularly brutal gangland message.”
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