Inside Ashley Dale's 'chilling' voice notes that helped convict her four killers
Ashley Dale was able to convict her killers from beyond the grave thanks to a series of harrowing voice notes she sent to friends predicting her murder.
It was the first case where the innocent victim, shot dead in her home last August, provided testimony through the terrified voice notes. Others were too scared to come forward and provide evidence. Miss Dale, 28, had expressed her fears over a growing feud between her boyfriend Lee Harrison and a gang in Liverpool in a series of recordings sent to friends.
In the opening of the trial, prosecutor Paul Greaney KC told the jury: "We should warn you now that listening to the voice notes is upsetting." But they became crucial in helping to put her four callous killers behind bars.
Council worker Ashley Dale (PA)
Lee Harrison (left) with Niall Barry (PA)The council officer was murdered at her home in the Old Swan area of Liverpool on August 21, 2022. The court heard she was not the intended target and was shot as a gunman burst in looking for her partner - but she was home alone watching TV with her beloved miniature dachshund named Darla when James Witham killed her with a Skorpion machine gun.
Ten bullets were fired into her dining room, one hitting Miss Dale in the abdomen as she stood by the back door, and five bullets into the wall of an upstairs bedroom. Witham, 41, Niall Barry, 26, Sean Zeisz, 28, and Joseph Peers, 29, all denied her murder, with Witham admitting manslaughter.
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On Monday, four of six men on trial were found guilty by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court after they took nine hours and 22 minutes deliberating. Witham, Peers, Barry and Zeisz were also convicted of conspiracy to murder Miss Dale's partner of five years, Mr Harrison, and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition.
Ian Fitzgibbon, who had also been on trial, was cleared of all charges after denying murder, manslaughter, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess firearms. He punched the air and patted his chest with his fist as he heard the verdict read out. A sixth man, Kallum Radford, was found not guilty of assisting an offender.
During the trial, voice recordings made by Miss Dale before her death were played to the court in which she described her "terrible anxiety" and told friends Barry, who had fallen out with Mr Harrison several years before, was "on some pure rampage".
DCI Cath Cummings, the senior investigating officer on the case, said: "It's the first time I've ever seen the evidence of the murder victim play such a crucial role in a court case. Ashley was narrating her own story and events that led to her death."
The last photograph Ashley took just moments before her murder (Liverpool Echo)
At just 28-years-old, Ashley was gunned down in her home by a drugs gang (Liverpool Echo)And the frightful recordings had a tremendous impact on those in court, with her adding: "There was barely a dry eye in the courtroom as her increased fear and anxiety was played out through recovered voice notes from her phone." Olivia Cristinacce-Travis, a senior crown prosecutor on the case, echoed her comments.
She said: "In my experience of criminal prosecutions, it has been unprecedented for a victim to foretell her own death, which is effectively what she has done through the voice notes… These voice notes were harrowing to listen to and chilling when played to the jury."
The prosecution used the voice notes from Miss Dale's phone to help bring her killers to justice. They described a growing feud between her boyfriend and one of the defendants, Barry, who was accused of orchestrating the plot. The court heard that the dispute between Mr Harrison and Barry dated back to 2019 when drug dealer Barry had a stash stolen by the Hillsiders gang.
The pair had previously been close but when Mr Harrison joined the Hillsiders, Barry was left angry. The feud was reignited at Glastonbury Festival in 2022, when Barry arrived with a knife threatening to "stab up" Mr Harrison. Between June and her death in August, Miss Dale described her growing anxiety over her boyfriend's feud, telling her pals in one voice note that she was "always looking over her shoulder".
Jurors were shown CCTV and telephone evidence illustrating how Barry, Sean Zeisz, James Witham and Joseph Peers had cooked up a plot to kill Mr Harrison from a small flat in the Dovecot area of the city. Chilling footage showed gunman James Witham, 41, and getaway driver Joseph Peers, 28, driving up Ashley's street before the murder.
They slashed her tyres, setting off her car alarm, in an effort to draw their target Mr Harrison from the house. After hearing her car alarm going off outside at around 11.40pm, she messaged her mother: "The rain just set my car alarm off x."
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Her pooch Darla grew restless and appeared to signal to Miss Dale that something was happening outside. The council worker took a photo of her cosying up to the dog, which she sent to her friend - which became the last photo she took. She wrote: "I've never known anything like it. She is scared of something outside."
Family photo issued by Merseyside Police of Julie Dale and Ashley Dale (PA)When their plan failed, Witham kicked the door down, firing 10 bullets as he chased Miss Dale screaming through the house. Neighbours described hearing the screams before noticing a woman lying groaning in her back garden. Officers matched the footprint left on Miss Dale's door to a pair of trainers Witham had bought just days before.
Speaking after the verdict, Miss Dale's family said she "fell in love with the wrong boy" as they expressed their anger towards the "despicable" boyfriend her murderers were targeting. Mother Julie Dale, 46, said she was "very, very angry" towards Mr Harrison, who did not cooperate with police and is believed to have moved to Dubai. She said: "Some days I feel like I'm more angry towards him than I am to the person who's actually killed Ashley because without Lee Harrison this wouldn't have happened."
Julie Dale said her daughter was "career driven" and excited about starting a promotion as an environmental health officer at Knowsley Council. She said sitting through the trial, which lasted more than six weeks, had been harder than she expected.
"I thought, in the early days, with some of the things that we had to do – planning a funeral and some really horrific things that we had to do in the beginning, I thought nothing can top them, nothing can get any worse," she said. Detective Chief Inspector Cath Cummings added: "It's Ashley that's actually brought these offenders to justice because overlaying that with the evidence that we've been able to gather she's told us the story herself."
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