'A TWISTED, DARK & MALEVOLENT SOUL'

Top cop tells how thug was brought to justice for prison guard murder

- By PATRICK EDRICH

HARDENED criminals were "wary" of an "incredibly twisted" man who murdered a prison officer in a vile revenge attack, according to the police officer who caught him.

Elias Morgan, 35, was convicted by a jury of the murder of dad-of-three and ex-Altcourse prison officer Lenny Scott on Friday, at Preston Crown Court.

Morgan, wearing a mask and hi-vis jacket, murdered Mr Scott in an “act of retaliation” when he opened fire with a handgun outside a gym on Peel Road in Skelmersdale on February 8 last year. The shooting came nearly four years after Mr Scott exposed an illicit relationship between Morgan, then a serving prisoner at HMP Altcourse, and a female prison guard.

Mr Scott, of Prescot, was offered a bribe of £1,500 to not report the phone which Morgan illegally held behind bars and which contained evidence of the affair. However he refused the bribe and Morgan, of Highgate Street, later warned him “I'll bide my time, but I promise I will get you”.

Speaking exclusively to the ECHO from inside the force’s investigation room at Skelmersdale police station, Lancashire Constabulary’s investigating officer Det Chief Insp Lee Wilson said Morgan was “regarded as a loose cannon” in Merseyside’s criminal underworld.

DCI Wilson told the ECHO: “Hardened criminals in Merseyside appear to be wary of him. Make of this what you will, but I don’t actually think organised crime generally in Liverpool think that what he did was in any way, shape or form justified. I’m sure that gives the family absolutely no comfort whatsoever.

“But criminals do have a code and there may be a consideration here that Morgan overstepped the mark. In terms of the character of Morgan, we saw him give evidence. He seems to me to be an incredibly twisted, dark and malevolent soul with a very strong sense of values, but they are values that no sane person would recognise as normal.”