Man was shot after group lured to alley to buy fake drugs

A MAN was shot in the leg during a drug deal gone wrong after the selling parties attempted to pass off books wrapped in brown tape as kilogram blocks of cocaine.

- By ADAM EVERETT ECHO Reporter

Charles Byers handed the supposed illicit substances over in a Spider-Man rucksack down an alleyway in Wallasey as part of the “elaborate ruse”.

This enabled him and a second man to walk away with the buyers’ cash after shooting one of their number in the leg. But he had earlier been caught on camera attaching a silencer to the gun used in the robbery, ultimately leading him, his girlfriend Emma Edwards and another conspirator, Andrew Struth, to prison.

Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday that a man named David Sumner, whose whereabouts are unknown, “made representations that he could supply kilograms of class A drugs” to an associate, Negus Nelson, during phone contact on June 29 this year. This led to them making arrangements for a “transaction” to take place in an alley off Shakespeare Road the same evening.

Stephen McNally, prosecuting, described how Nelson and his brother Zion Nelson travelled from Sheffield to Merseyside in a Volkswagen Golf, with their associate, Stuart Cook, driving from South Yorkshire in a Volkswagen Passat. He apparently couriered the cash to be used to purchase two kilograms of cocaine. Byers, Edwards and Struth set about creating “dummy packages” which they would later attempt to pass off as the drugs.

Edwards was meanwhile seen driving her partner to and from their home on Poulton Road in Seacombe throughout the evening, enabling him to collect a stolen Nissan Navara which he would later attend the scene of the shooting in.

Struth, who had bought rolls of brown parcel tape and two hardback books, also purchased a jerrycan of petrol from a garage using Edwards’ bank card at around 10pm before returning to the same address. Byers and Sumner would then arrive at the meeting place at around 11pm, being seen at the entrance to the alleyway in possession of a red Spider-Man branded rucksack.