Man shot dead next to Birmingham City FC ground in a 'mystery meeting arranged by prisoners'

Tyrone Dorsett, 20, was killed in a small residential car park near the Blues ground. Credit: Birmingham Live/BPM

A man was shot dead next to Birmingham City FC's St Andrews stadium during a 'mystery meeting arranged by prisoners', a murder trial has heard. 

Tyrone Dorsett, 20, was killed in a small residential car park on South Holme in Bordesley Green, Birmingham, shortly after midnight on 15 April 2018, a jury was told.

The reason for the 'point blank' shooting remains unknown but the meeting was likely arranged to conduct a 'transaction that involves serious criminality and a significant amount of money', it was alleged. 

Damaine Sculley, 30, of Greenfield Road, Great Barr, and Milton Williams, 41, from Grace Road, Tipton, West Midlands, are on trial at Birmingham Crown Court where they both deny murder.

Opening the case, prosecutor Simon Denison KC said: "Tyrone Dorsett was 20 years old when he was murdered at just past midnight in the early minutes of Sunday, April 15 in 2018. He lived in Telford in Shropshire.

"On the evening of Saturday the 14th of April 2018 he drove his Volkswagen Golf with two of his friends from Telford to the Bordesley area of Birmingham and to a small car park just behind some flats next to the Birmingham City football ground in Bordesley.

"There they met three men who had gone there from Handsworth. Two of those three men are the first defendant Damaine Sculley and the second defendant Milton Williams. The third man has never been identified.

"The meeting between these two groups of three was arranged in a clandestine way via intermediaries who were in prison using mobile phones in their prison cells."

He told the court that Mr Sculley was in contact with an inmate at HMP Wandsworth in London who, in turn, was in communication with a prisoner at HMP Featherstone in Staffordshire. The latter's cellmate was in touch with one of Mr Dorsett's friends, it was said.

Mr Denison stated there was 'no direct phone contact' between the two groups who met in the car park. 

Mr Denison added: "We don't know why they arranged to meet but that clandestine manner by which the meeting was arranged via the intermediaries in prison suggests that the purpose of it was a transaction that involves serious criminality and a significant amount of money."

He told the court Mr Dorsett's group arrived in the Bordesley area at around 11:30pm and were directed to the small car park by the defendants' group, who chose the location.

Mr Denison said: "Mr Sculley, Williams and the third man walked the final part of the journey along a series of roads in Bordesley to the flats where the two groups eventually met up.

"Tyrone Dorsett moved his car from where he was parked up to the small car park behind the flats. Within minutes or so of arriving in that car park he was shot dead. He was shot as he sat in the driver's seat of his car.

"He was shot twice from behind from point blank range by one of Sculley, Williams or the third man using a loaded self-loading pistol. He was shot in the upper back with the bullets passing forward into his chest and causing injuries that led to massive and very rapid loss of blood that he couldn't survive. It was a deliberate killing."

The prosecutor told the jury that both defendants stopped using their mobile numbers shortly after the shooting. He said on April 16 Williams booked a return flight to Jamaica, leaving the UK the next day but not using the return flight.

Mr Denison stated that a 'long police investigation' led to the defendants being arrested and interviewed in September last year.

He stated it could not be proved exactly who shot Mr Dorsett but he argued the defendants were 'acting together' along with the third man.

Mr Denison said: "The prosecution case is each of those men Sculley, Williams and the third male knew they had with them a loaded self-loading pistol and each of them intended it would be used if necessary to shoot from point blank range to kill. And it was."


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