'Dirty phone' used to plot murder

Joan and John Stirland were shot at their seaside bungalow

A jury has heard how eight men charged with conspiracy to murder a couple in their seaside home allegedly bought a phone to use in planning the killings.

The mobile, described as a "dirty phone" by the prosecution, was bought close to Trusthorpe, Lincolnshire, where John and Joan Stirland were shot.

The prosecution said the shootings were revenge for a murder carried out by Mrs Stirland's son Michael O'Brien in 2003.

All of the eight men have denied the charges at Birmingham Crown Court.

It was, if you like, a dirty or rather very dirty phone and it was meant probably never to be discovered, but it was Timothy Spencer, QC, prosecutor

Prosecuting, Timothy Spencer, QC, said the "dirty phone" was used for about five days around the time of the shootings.

He told the jury: "(The) purple phone is a murder phone. It is a phone that was obtained for the purpose of communications relating to the killing of the Stirlands.

"It was only live over five days, between the afternoon of the 4th of August and the afternoon the Stirlands met their death.

"It was, if you like, a dirty or rather very dirty phone and it was meant probably never to be discovered, but it was."

The couple had moved to Trusthorpe from Nottingham about eight months before they were killed.

Mobile phone records from this phone and other phones belonging to members of the gang link the eight defendants, putting some of them around Trusthorpe on the Wednesday and Thursday before the attack on Sunday, the court was told.

A 40-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was captured on CCTV coming and going in a Mercedes car from a caravan site in nearby Ingoldmells around the same time.

'Revenge killings'

Mr Stirland, 55, and his 51-year-old wife were killed following the conviction of Mrs Stirland's son Michael O'Brien for the murder of Marvyn Bradshaw in Nottingham in 2003.

A teenage friend of Mr Bradshaw's who witnessed the shooting suffered a subsequent decline in health and died of pneumonia, the court heard.

The eight defendants allegedly blamed O'Brien for both deaths and sought to avenge them by murdering his parents.

The jury was told that the unnamed 38-year-old defendant carried out "reconnaissance" at the Stirlands' home based on information he had received from his co-accued Kevin Holm.

Mr Spencer said Holm's parents were good friends with Mr and Mrs Stirland and had kept in touch with the couple after they fled Nottingham following an attack on their home.

He said: "This was evening, night-time reconnaissance of the Stirland's... what sort of car, what's the house like, how many people live there? - trying to perfect the information he got through BT about where the Stirlands lived."

Text messages

A former BT employee had already fed information on where the Stirlands lived to the gang, the court heard.

Text messges sent betwen the 38-year-old unnamed defendant and the other 40-year-old unnamed co-accused were also read out to court detailing the Beretta handguns used in the shootings.

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.