Ashley Dale: Neighbour heard someone say 'help me, help me' on the night of shooting

A neighbour of a council worker has told of how she heard a 'loud metallic crash' then a young female voice say 'help me, help me' the night she was shot dead.

Ashley Dale, 28, was fatally shot in her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of 21 August 2022.

Five men - James Witham, 41, Niall Barry, 26, Sean Zeisz, 28, Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, and Joseph Peers, 29 - deny her murder, which is alleged to have happened following a feud with her partner Lee Harrison.

During evidence in her murder trial, Liverpool Crown Court heard from a number of witnesses who lived nearby at the time of the killing.

Neighbour A, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told jurors she heard a “loud drilling noise” and a woman screaming "Get Out!" the night Ashley was killed.

She heard nothing more until police arrived, she added.

Another neighbour, referred to as Neighbour B, also gave evidence saying she knew Ashley “in passing… but I didn’t know her name at the time".

She told the court one of her bedroom windows was 'open' on the night Ashley was shot.

Around 12.30am that night she says she heard a “loud bang… a bang I’ve not heard before. At first, I thought it was a firework. It was nearby.”

Neighbour B said there was then a “scream… within seconds,” and "it was loud.”

"It sounded like a female in terms of pitch," she added.

"There was another scream a few seconds later and a minute or two later, I heard car doors slamming… and a car speeding away.”

Another neighbour, referred to as Neighbour C, says she heard “banging” around 12.30am and thought it was “someone closing their wheelie bin.”

Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, asked if anything else happened afterwards and Neighbour C said she heard “screaming” which, she added, “was definitely a woman".

Another, Neighbour D, told the jury she heard a “loud metallic crash” which “echoed.” Her music had stopped at the moment the noise happened.

Afterwards, she said she went to the back door because she heard someone say “help me, help me” in a “young female voice.”

Liverpool Crown Court also heard from PC Christopher Sinnott, who was one of the first officers at the house after the shooting.

PC Sinnott said he saw bullet holes on the wall and ceiling in the dining room of the home, and noticed a dog in the corner of the room.

He said: “It was cowering in the corner in its bed.”

The officer, whose colleague found Miss Dale in the back yard, said he counted eight to 10 bullet casings in the property.

On Tuesday, 10 October, the court was shown a selfie which Miss Dale sent to a friend less than an hour before her death with her dachshund Darla.

Witham, of Huyton; Fitzgibbon, of St Helens; Zeisz of Huyton; Barry, of Tuebrook; and Peers, of Roby – all Merseyside – deny conspiracy to murder Mr Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition, as well as the murder of Miss Dale.

Kallum Radford, 26, of no fixed address, denies assisting an offender.

The trial continues.