Final chapter of deadly gang war which left two women dead and five jailed for life

A tit-for-tat feud between rival organised crime groups based on two neighbouring estates led to a spate of eight shootings in one year

Back in 2022, with only the M53 motorway keeping one another at bay, the Woodchurch and Beechwood estates made for uneasy bedfellows. Beneath the surface, a feud between rival gangs based in these two neighbouring areas had been bubbling away for some time but only occasionally dared to rear its ugly head.

But, four years ago, this burgeoning row exploded into ruthless, unsparing and lethal violence, killing two women, leaving five men imprisoned for life and with two others facing jail sentences of more than two decades. By Christmas Day, the grim tally for this annus horribilis stood at no less than eight shootings as this corner of the Wirral Peninsula was brought to nationwide infamy.

This week, what could prove to be the last chapter in this sorry story was written as, after nearly four months, the trial over the murder of Jackie Rutter finally concluded. Postscripts could yet be added, should certain figures whose whereabouts remain unknown ever surface, but the roots of this particularly insidious knotweed can be traced back to November 26, 2019, the date of the first documented incident in what was, for a time, a tit-for-tat between east and west.

‘They ran up on me mum, that’s one thing they will regret’

On this occasion, Beechwood-affiliated Jack Hayes was chased through the streets by four men on two motorcycles before his girlfriend’s Ford Fiesta was eventually cornered outside a Shell petrol station on Borough Road in Birkenhead, near to Christ Church Primary School. A hail of six bullets was unloaded into the car as his partner desperately attempted to perform a U-turn and escape, with a seventh shot from a self-loading handgun going astray.

Hayes was struck in the thigh, arm and shoulder as a result of the terrifying assault but ultimately survived. Although not said to be the gunman, John Lewis, known as “Stitch”, was later convicted of attempted murder in relation to the incident and jailed for 24 years.

Sitting alongside him in the dock on this occasion was none other than Connor Chapman, alleged to have been the rider of one of the bikes which tore away at speed of up to 100mph following the shooting. He, however, was cleared of attempting to murder Hayes and released from prison during June 2022, having been held in custody on remand while awaiting trial.

It was during this spell behind bars that Chapman recorded a foreboding rap video in which he vowed revenge on his enemies, citing an aggravated burglary at his mum’s house amidst his enforced absence as he ominously warned: “You can chat a bro today and we’ll chat a bro again, ‘cos these roads are getting sticky and they wanna see us dead. All I wish for me brothers is freedom, health and wealth, and if it [inaudible] put this to bed, but they ran up on me mum. That’s one thing they will regret.

“And I promised her one thing, they’re never touching her again. Repercussions, bigger actions, off with his head, and little did he know he’d just signed his own death. We’d have got his mum touched but she’s already in hell, so I’ll p*** on her grave and fill her casket up with shells. And if it gets fixed then I’m doing it again, and I’ll pull up to your funeral, let off on all your friends.

“I know I’ve been a scumbag but I’m proud of that s***. My nan never prayed in her life but she prays that I’m home. These are the words, everything that I wrote. I said nan, gotta go, only get two hours of soash [social]. But it plays on me mind, everything that she spoke. I love me brother C though, I’m glad that he made it. If I make it outta of here, I’m due to be something famous. Because if you touch one of mine, I’ll leave your soul on the pavement.”

A Sunday bike ride with murder in mind

Back on the outside, the squabbling had continued to rumble on in the years between the shooting of Hayes and Chapman’s release. On September 7, 2021, Mason Smith, later to be accused of murder alongside twin brothers Curtis and James Byrne, members of the Woodchurch set, was chased down the street on his bike by a Ford Focus before being struck by the vehicle and left with numerous broken bones, with the car involved later found burnt out on the eastern fringes of Beechwood, also known as the Ford estate.

Then, on March 22, 2022, Callum Taylor was shot in the stomach as he dealt drugs on Hoole Road in Woodchurch. CCTV footage would show the close friend and former housemate of James Byrne being approached by a grey Ford car before he ran off as a series of five bangs were heard, followed by screams, with this vehicle similarly being torched on the outskirts of Beechwood.

Two months later, on May 11, the Byrne brothers headed out into the spring Sunday evening on their e-bikes, destined for Beechwood Social Club, little more than a five-minute ride away from their mum’s house on the Noctorum estate. But, rather than having a couple of pints, a few frames of pool or a game of darts in mind, they were plotting the assassination of a rival gang member.

On Fender Way, they encountered then 17-year-old Mitchell McGraa. The teenager fled for his life as he was pursued by the chasing pack but was struck once in the thigh as a volley of six gunshots was unleashed, although he was able to escape via the rear of a parade of shops with the bullet still lodged in his leg.

Smith was accused of being a third bike rider involved in the incident, although he was ultimately cleared of attempted murder by a jury. But the Byrnes were convicted of the same offence and jailed for life with minimum terms of 18 years and eight months each in September 2024, Curtis having jumped out of a bedroom window while wearing only a pair of shorts in a failed bid for freedom when police came knocking at his door.

Jurors heard that the shooting came against a background of two opposing gangs who were “involved in the supply of controlled drugs”, one located on the Woodchurch estate and one based in Beechwood. The court was told on this occasion that “tensions had been rising” between the two factions since at least 2021 and only “began to get worse” from thereon in.

The Byrnes, then aged 20, were said to have targeted McGraa, part of the Ford OCG, while he was out dealing drugs. This, the crown alleged, formed the motivation for the shooting, with their victim having stashed a bag containing a number of wraps of cocaine in nearby bushes ahead of the attempted hit.

Feud claims first fatality

Throughout the summer of 2022, the gangland violence would continue with depressing relentlessness. First, three men would sprint into the Arrowe Park pub in Woodchurch for cover on June 8 after shots were reportedly fired at them from a car outside.

Then, late on the evening of August 10, Chapman’s younger brother Lewis was shot with a Skorpion submachine gun on Danger Lane in Moreton by four assailants on motorbikes. One resident, almost prophetically, told the ECHO at this time: “There’s so many babies who live around here. Anything could have happened.”

For a time, matters appeared to have quietened down as the Wirral was given a short respite of just under three months from the torrent of flying bullets. But it was an all too brief pause, and, soon, the rivalry would claim its first fatality.

Again, it would be James Byrne with his finger on the trigger. But, this time, his motive was seemingly nothing to do with his enemies from Beechwood, with his ire instead being diverted to Peter and Steven Rutter.

The two brothers seemingly had form for stealing from, or “taxing”, drug dealers, and, on October 28, 2022, they would make the fatal error of targeting the JJ Line, the county lines-style supply line operated by Byrne and Preston Connolly. Reports from the parties involved varied as to exactly what happened that afternoon in the car park beside the Premier convenience store on Fleet Croft Road in Woodchurch, whether the owners of the graft line were themselves the ones who attacked and just how much credence could be lent to suggestions of a knife being used.

But the vital detail was that the Rutters had left the scene in possession of the mobile phone which Byrne and Connolly used to conduct their dirty business. In doing so, they set in motion a desire for revenge which would lead to their 53-year-old mum, Jackie, being shot dead on her own doorstep.

The retribution was swift and unforgiving, essentially coming the very next day. On the evening of the 29th, Simon Allen, one of Byrne’s top lackeys, was seen performing reconnaissance missions of Jackie Rutter’s home on Meadowbrook Road in Moreton and Garden Hey Road in Saughall Massie, where the car used as part of their plot would later be torched.

Later, the drug-addicted paedophile with an obsession for firearms was seen buying Lucozade and a jerrycan full of petrol from a Texaco garage. Alongside his boss, who was seemingly also present during this preparatory outing, he then returned to David Harrison’s house on Downham Road South in Heswall.

From there, a convoy was said to have set off for getaway driver Barrie Glynn’s address on nearby Westway and then onwards to the Moreton area, where vehicles were left in place to allow for the burnout and getaway. On the stroke of midnight, Byrne, Connolly, Glynn and Harrison set out from the latter’s home, giving his co-defendants a lift to collect the stolen Vauxhall Insignia, which they would travel to Meadowbrook in before shooting Jackie in the chest.

Shortly after 1am, the nan-of-five would be dead. Byrne had satisfied his lust for revenge, and Allen and his recruits, Glynn and Harrison, had secured their payment of a fistful of class A drugs.

It was perhaps a perverse sideshow from the Woodchurch v Beechwood dispute, but at its very core was rule one of the drug-dealing game, which had sown the seeds of this rivalry. Never lose face.

Devastating sting in tail as Woodchurch OCG unravels

While Byrne et al. would avoid the consequences of the shooting of Jackie Rutter for more than three years, the Woodchurch OCG eventually unravelled during a month of further bloodshed in the run-up to Christmas, beginning when Curtis Byrne was shot in the legs on Orrets Meadow Road on the evening of December 3. This ironically saw the victim’s secret life of crime exposed when the police visited him in his hospital bed and took a look at his phone, which contained a catalogue of messages, videos, screenshots and notes linking him to involvement in the supply of cocaine and cannabis and a whole host of burglaries in which high-value cars and motorbikes had been stolen.

One of these break-ins, in the early hours of November 28, also involved both Smith and Chapman, with the three men equipping themselves with balaclavas and gloves before stealing two electric Sur-Ron bikes from the garden shed of a house on Thirlmere Avenue. The Glock pistol used in the attack on Byrne was then fired at another Woodchurch gang member, Kieran Cowley, on Newark Close in Noctorum on December 18.

The same month would also see James Byrne locked up when police raided his flat on Thorburn Road in New Ferry in connection with his involvement in the supply of class A and B drugs, which dated back as far as nearly two years previously. Then, on December 23, Jake Duffy and his associate Kieran Salkeld subjected a rival, Sam Searson, to a brutal assault on Highfield Road in Rock Ferry by repeatedly punching, kicking and stamping on him.

Footage of the beating was captured by the Ring doorbell camera of a house on this street and would go on to spread like wildfire around social media. Once again, repercussions were to follow.

Shortly before midnight on December 24, 2022, beautician Elle Edwards, a wholly innocent bystander, was smoking a cigarette outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey when she was shot twice in the head by Chapman, who had been loitering in the vicinity for nearly three hours. She was only 26.

Five men, including Duffy and Salkeld, were also injured after being hit by some of the 12 bullets which were indiscriminately sprayed from another Skorpion, a Czech-made piece of hardware originally manufactured for military use. Nigel Power KC, prosecuting, later told a jury during Chapman’s trial in June 2023: “What otherwise might have been viewed as a random or inexplicable shooting of a wholly innocent woman, Elle Edwards, was in fact the culmination of an ongoing feud between people from the Woodchurch estate and people from the Ford estate, which included Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, who were the intended victims of the shooting.”

During his evidence, Chapman denied being motivated by revenge for the precursor incident but was unanimously found guilty of Elle’s murder, as well as the attempted murders of Duffy and Salkeld. He was handed a life imprisonment with a minimum term of 48 years.

Now newly admitted to the life sentence club are Allen and Harrison, who were told on Thursday that they must serve at least 28 and 26 years behind bars, respectively, before they have any prospect of release. Byrne, meanwhile, had his own term increased from 18 to 40 years, as he too was convicted of Jackie Rutter’s murder.

Glynn may well have been acquitted on this count but ultimately received 30 years himself after being convicted of manslaughter, a sentence which will result in him spending at least two decades behind bars. Connolly was meanwhile notable by his absence during the trial, having fled to Turkey and then, the ECHO understands, onwards to Thailand and Dubai.

Their punishment was a long time coming. Indeed, there may have even been times over the past three years when those who had loved and lost Jackie wondered whether the day would ever come.

On the first anniversary of her death in 2023, her family said in a poignant tribute: “As a family, we have been living our worst nightmare since you were cruelly taken by cowards. This has destroyed our family and left grandchildren confused as to why Nanny Jackie isn’t coming home. We will continue until our last breath to fight for your justice, to ensure those individuals responsible are held accountable for this evil and merciless crime.”

That day has come at long last for the Rutter family, but there are no winners here. Certainly not the grieving relatives and friends, nor the malign forces behind this year of madness. James Byrne will be aged 65 before he sees the outside of a prison cell; Chapman will be even older at 70. Allen and Harrison, now in their 50s, might never be free men again. And, for what? But few will be able to find a shred of pity for them.

Liverpool Crown Court heard this week that incidences of gun crime over the water have dropped sharply since the likes of Byrne and Chapman were locked away. That is no coincidence. Now, it can only be hoped that the tale of these two estates circa 2022 will never be repeated.