Ashley Dale killers begged their mums to help them get away with murder

Ashley Dale's killers turned to their mums for help as they tried to cover up their involvement in shooting the 28-year-old council worker dead.

Ashley was killed in her house on Leinster Road in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of August 21 last year. James Witham, Joseph Peers, Niall Barry and Sean Zeisz were all found guilty of her murder last week after a trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

They were also convicted of planning to murder Ms Dale's boyfriend Lee Harrison and having a banned weapon, a Skorpion submachine gun, and bullets with the intention to harm.

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Ian Fitzgibbon was cleared of these three charges while a sixth defendant, Kallum Radford, was found not guilty of helping an offender. Both Peers and Zeisz asked their mums to give evidence from the witness box to support their defence, as reported by the Liverpool ECHO.

Peers' mum and dad both testified that he had been at their home in his pyjamas watching the Anthony Joshua v Oleksandr Usyk fight at the time of the shooting.

Lesley McMahon said she had gone upstairs to bed at around 7pm or 8pm on August 20, 2022 and was "on me phone, doing a word search or just watching a bit of telly". She then remembered her son coming home shortly after 11pm.

Mrs McMahon shared: "He just put his pyjamas on, that's what he does, make himself a tea and toast, and that's it for the night. Sometimes he might stay up late and take the dog for a walk."

Mrs McMahon then said she noticed someone knocking the door in the early hours, around 1am.

When asked by Peers' counsel Peter Wright KC about how common it was for anyone to visit at that time, Mrs McMahon responded: "It's very uncommon. No one would knock at that time. Joe's just gone into his bedroom and opened the window and looked out. He shouted 'giz a minute' or something to that effect."

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"I heard Joseph back in his closet, he's come in me room. He's been changed into different clothes. He said he was going out."

Mrs McMahon reported that their CCTV system had been damaged when the family had to temporarily move out of the address due to building work, and that footage from that night could not be recovered and was "sadly lost".

Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, then accused her of "telling a pack of lies". Mrs McMahon replied: "You prove that."

Mr Greaney then asked: "Can I just understand? Your son has been arrested and charged with murder, you have never spoken to your husband about the events on that night?"

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Mrs McMahon answered: "Of the night the young lady got murdered? Everybody in Liverpool spoke about it, we spoke how sad it was, yeah."

The father of Peers, Thomas McMahon, was then asked to testify before the jury. He confirmed that his son had come home to watch the boxing, and also mentioned that their CCTV system only kept video footage for 14 days.

Meanwhile, Zeisz's mum supported his claim that he had visited her house for a Sunday roast the day after the shooting. The prosecution's argument was that he was helping to move the car used by the killers to a driveway in St Helens around this time.

Angela Jones, who works as a domestic assistant at Broadgreen Hospital, told the court her son was "a lot quieter" than usual but added that she thought it was because he didn't like a new pair of shoes he had.

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