Couple shot in 'gang execution'

Joan and John Stirland were shot at their seaside bungalow

A couple killed at their home by the seaside were executed by a criminal gang, a jury has heard.

John Stirland, 55, and his wife Joan, 51, from Nottingham were shot dead in their bungalow at Trusthorpe, Lincolnshire, in August 2004.

Timothy Spencer, QC, prosecuting, told a jury at Birmingham Crown Court that the couple were gunned down in a "clinical and efficient manner."

Eight men deny conspiring to murder the couple between 1 August and 9 August.

Mr Spencer told the jury the Stirlands were originally from Nottingham, but were forced to flee the city when Mrs Stirland's son Michael O'Brien was convicted of murder.

The lawyer told the court that O'Brien's victim, Marvyn Bradshaw, was a close friend of a teenager known to some of the defendants and he was with his friend when O'Brien opened fire in a pub car park in Nottingham in August 2003.

Within days of O'Brien being arrested and charged with murder, gunmen targeted the Stirlands' home in South View Road, Nottingham, spraying the windows with bullets.

Mr Spencer said the Stirlands were targeted as a "response" to the shooting carried out by Mrs Stirland's son.

He told the court: "The execution was the culmination of a plan, a criminal plan known by lawyers as a conspiracy.

"It was a plan in which all of these eight men played a part.

The prosecutor said the men carried out the murders without hesitation.

'Gang operation'

"The targets, Mr and Mrs Stirland, were located quickly and shot just as quickly - in other words an indication we suggest of a well-organised, well-planned gang operation.

"And that is precisely what these defendants are, not a whole gang but a great part of the gang which planned, organised and carried out these shootings," he said.

He added the couple were targeted by two gunmen armed with two handguns - Mr Stirland was shot six times while his wife was shot four times, three from one gun and one from the other.

He added that despite the threat to their lives, they refused to enter a formal witness protection programme.

John Russell, 29, of Northcote Way, Nottingham; Michael McNee, 20, of no fixed address; Shane Bird, 38, of Carlton Hill, Nottingham; and Kevin Holm, 38, of Cliff Road, Carlton, Nottingham, all deny a charge of conspiring to murder Mr and Mrs Stirland.

Andrew McKinnon, 21, of no fixed address and Lanelle Douglas, 20, of no fixed address also deny the same charge along with a 38-year-old man and a 40-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The case continues.