Liam Smith: CCTV footage shows moments leading up to Wigan acid attack

• Greater Manchester Police released this video of the moments before Liam Smith was shot

New CCTV footage shows the moments leading up to when a man was shot dead and doused in acid outside his home.

Michael Hillier, 39, and Rachel Fulstow, 37 were both give a life sentence for the murder of dad-of-two Liam Smith.

Hillier, from Sheffield, who was handcuffed for the duration of the sentencing hearing, was given a minimum jail term of 33 years.

Fulstow, from York, was given a minimum term of 30 years. She was also found guilty of a charge of perverting the course of justice. She was given an 18 month sentence to run concurrently with her other conviction.

The 38-year-old's body was found at the bottom of his driveway on Kilburn Drive in Shevington in the early evening of 24 November 2022.

Hillier, 39, shot dad-of-two Liam Smith in the face yards from his home in Wigan, before dousing his body in sulphuric acid.

He claimed to have been acting in revenge after his girlfriend, Rachel Fulstow, told him she had been raped by Mr Smith years earlier during a Tinder date.

But rather than going to the police, the pair decided to seek 'vigilante justice'.

They plotted Mr Smith's death over a 10-month period, before drug dealer Hillier made the trip to Kilburn Drive in Shevington to kill the 38-year-old on 24 November 2022.

Following the murder, the couple enacted an elaborate plan to avoid justice. Days later, they went on a two-week trip to Jamaica. When they returned home, the net began to close.

Hillier was arrested. Fulstow was initially treated as a witness but became a suspect after she repeatedly lied to officers during her interview.

Mr Smith was a former soldier who ran his own business, LPS Electrical and Build Ltd. He was a devoted father.

The court heard Fulstow met Mr Smith on dating app Tinder and the pair went on a date in York in 2019, when she said they had 'non-consensual sex' at a hotel in York.

She did not describe it as rape and said she went for lunch with Mr Smith the following day, the court heard.

In 2021, she began a relationship with Hillier, but said he could be verbally abusive and unpredictable and was not happy she had a one-night stand with Mr Smith.

She told the court the first she knew of the attack on Mr Smith was when Hillier turned up at her house the following morning and told her.

Fulstow, an international travel and tourism management graduate from Leeds Met University, said she was 'petrified' to go to police about her boyfriend.

The court heard the couple went on holiday to Jamaica together days after the killing.

Hillier, who told the court he was concerned in the production and distribution of a large-scale cannabis operation, said they had both planned the attack on Mr Smith after Fulstow disclosed she had been 'graphically raped' by him.

He told the jury: "We decided jointly between the two of us that we would deal with the matter ourselves and seek justice ourselves and go down the vigilante route."

The court heard Mr Smith was lured out of his house at about 6.40pm by Hillier, who shot him in the face before pouring acid onto his face and body, followed by soda crystals.

Mr Smith was left for dead in the street with chemicals still reacting on him while Hillier fled and disposed of the car, which was on cloned registration plates and had tinted windows.

Fulstow's phone showed she had made internet searches for Mr Smith's electrical company and Mitsubishi Shogun cars, like the one used by Hillier and later burned out. She had also searched the meaning of the word ‘premeditated’ and ‘does acid corrode stainless steel’.

On the morning of the killing, she checked the weather in Wigan, the court heard. Hillier had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder. Fulstow denied murder, manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

During the trial, they blamed each other. While admitting being the gunman who killed Liam, Hillier maintained that he was not acting alone and claimed that Fulstow had played a full part in encouraging him and preparing the attack.

Fulstow denied that she had any involvement in planning the attack on Liam.

DCI Gina Brennand of GMP’s Major Incident Team, said: "I had a victim that we knew nothing about," she explained. "No witnesses, no suspects, no weapon, no motive, and very little evidence to go on.

Describing how detectives solved the killing, she added: "CCTV footage, some from Liam, the victim's home address itself, and some from a bin wagon and an Asda delivery van, captured the vehicle driven by the suspect, Michael Hillier, on the day of the murder.

"What that showed us was that that car was outside of Liam's home address for almost ten hours before he got out and murdered Liam.

"We knew the build up in that we knew the movements of the vehicle. We knew the obtaining of license plates, and we knew how Liam had been killed but we didn't know who'd done it.

"A couple of weeks into the investigation, we received intelligence from South Yorkshire Police that a vehicle had been stopped three weeks before Liam was murdered and in that vehicle was the R22 ORA plates. It was that that really unravelled this case.

"The thread that you pull that after that was a house of cards that led to one person to another to another to CCTV to Michael Hillier to Rachael Fulstow."

Detective Chief Inspector Gina Brennand of GMP’s Major Incident Team, said: “Our investigation team have worked tirelessly over the past 9 months to find answers for Liam’s family and hopefully the decisions in court today will give them some form of closure.

“This case has shown a number of complexities throughout, with Liam’s name being tainted in the process, and him not being here to defend himself against accusations have been really difficult for the family to hear in court.

“I would like to thank our partners in the Crown Prosecution Service and Prosecution Counsel who have helped secure this outcome.

“Our thoughts, as always, remain with Liam’s family through this devastating time.”