Inside the urgent manhunt for armed and dangerous killers

AFTER Barry Dawson was shot dead through his front window in broad daylight, police faced an urgent race against time to get his armed and dangerous killers off the street.

- By SOPHIE DOUGHTY

And now, after murderers Sean Reay, Kelvin Lawson and Thomas Sterling were jailed for a total of 86 years, the detective that brought them to justice has lifted the lid on the investigation, codenamed Operation Hamnett.

Durham Constabulary’s Detective Chief Inspector Neil Fuller explained how vital it was that the killers were taken off the streets urgently.

He said: “Not only had someone been murdered by the use of a firearm, the fact it occurred in broad daylight in front of members of the public and children makes it very unusual.

“It's very rare. We take things like that extremely seriously. We put as much resource into it as we could as a very small police force.”

Barry was killed at his home on Elm Street, in the South Moor area of Stanley at around 5pm on Saturday, April 5.

Det Chief Insp Fuller explained police were quickly on the scene after being told what had happened by the ambulance service.

“It was a bright sunny day, there were lots of people in the street,” he said. “The ambulance service informed us. It came through that Mr Dawson had been shot in the front room. It was very confusing.

“Because they weren't 100% sure what the situation was they held back while police attended to make sure it was safe.

“However, the gun was no longer there. Police were first on the scene a few minutes after the report. The first officers on the scene would have walked into that situation without fully understanding what they were walking into.

“They started first aid as best they could and the ambulance attended, but Mr Dawson probably died very soon after being shot, if not immediately.”

A team of detectives went on to recover and scour more than 800 hours of CCTV footage and mobile phone data to piece together what had happened that day.