Five years ago on Monday, three "parasitic" killers were locked up for life after one of Merseyside's most shocking murder cases of recent years.
Lewis Dunne was just 16-years-old when his path crossed four men, completely unknown to him, whose egos had been bruised by a violent clash with a rival gang earlier the same day.
At 10.36pm, on November 15, 2015, Lewis was on his way to borrow a bicycle when he walked past his killers as they lurked under a bridge on a dark, isolated canal towpath in the Eldonian Village.
READ MORE: Lewis Dunne murder: Cracking the code of silence
Unsuspecting Lewis was shot in the back with a double-barrelled shotgun and left for dead while the four figures were captured on CCTV fleeing the scene.
Three of those men, all self-confessed Class A drug dealers, are a short way into life sentences after a jury at Liverpool Crown Court convicted them of Lewis’s murder - while the fourth has never been identified.
The ECHO looks at how a petty but explosive feud led to a “wholly innocent” teenage boy being gunned down in cold blood, just yards from his home.
The Victim
Alsop High School student Lewis Dunne “brought love, gave love, was and is love”, his heartbroken family said at the time of his death.
A statement from mum and dad, Gemma and Steven, and sisters, Ashley and Yasmin, said: “Lewis was his own person – he was sure of himself and knew who he was. He had values that weren’t compromised by anything.
“He was an individual. He loved everyone, he loved peace and would sit and talk for hours on end, reflecting on the wonders of life.”
In court the jury heard Lewis had “no conceivable link” to two rival gangs clashing on the day he was killed.
He spent a “perfectly ordinary evening” eating Chinese food with his mum and sisters and watching ITV reality show I’m a celebrity... get me out of here.
At 10.24pm that night he texted a friend, named Josh Blake, asking to borrow a bicycle so he could go and buy cigarettes.
He left his home telling his mum he would be back in 20 minutes. They would not see him alive again.
The killers
Dad-of-one Jake Culshaw, 25, from the Birkenhead area, had no fixed address at the time of the murder.
By his own admission, he was selling “smack and crack” for a man named in court as Daniel Shepherd and had numerous previous convictions for burglary, mainly involving the theft of motor vehicles.
During his police interviews and in court he said his parents were both drug addicts and he had experienced a “very bad” upbringing, smoking weed “since I was a kid”.
John Martin, 20, from Ince Avenue , Anfield, also said he was working as a drug dealer for Shepherd.
He received his first conviction, for burglary, aged just 11 and has several convictions for theft and handling stolen goods.
The court heard Martin suffered a brain injury after falling from a roof aged eight and had a “cognitive deficit”.
His brother Paul Martin, 26, also of Ince Avenue, had links to Shepherd but it was not clear whether he worked in the same drugs gang at the time of the murder.
He was the only of the defendants with a previous conviction relating to firearms, having been convicted of possessing ammunition without a certificate in 2010.
Paul Martin had also been jailed for 44 months in 2014 for possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply.
Gang Rivalry
During a harrowing and gruelling trial, each defendant admitted they had links to Daniel Shepherd - with John Martin and Culshaw confessing to selling crack-cocaine and heroin on his behalf.
Shepherd, who was not charged with any offences in relation to Lewis's death, lived on Snowdrop Street in Kirkdale at the time of the murder, near the former home of the Martin brothers on Easby Road.
John Martin fell short of admitting he and his associates were in a gang, but described them as “a group of lads who made money together”.
As the trial progressed it emerged the younger Martin brother was involved in a feud with a group of men based in the Scotland Road area.
The court heard of an incident before the murder, which Martin claimed took place in August 2015.
He told the court he had been driving a stolen Honda Accord when he was forcibly “pulled out” of the vehicle by men he named as ‘Babbo O'Toole’ and ‘Daryl Burns’.
He said his assailants drove away in the car taking what he described as around £200 of drugs cash.
Martin admitted he knew those men were associated with the Scotland Road based gang, and specifically a man named Thomas Condor.
Culshaw told the jury he had been told about this attack and claimed the feud was related to a woman named Olivia, his cousin, who he said had been unfaithful to one of Martin’s friends by sleeping with one of Condor’s associates.
He claimed the rivalry was “nothing to do with him” and he would not know Thomas Condor “if he walked into this courtroom”.
Paul Martin told the jury he knew Thomas Condor from his school days but claimed there was no issue between them.
Flashpoint
The court heard that at 6.09pm on the evening Lewis was killed, a stolen green Mini Cooper, driven by John Martin, was rammed by a black Peugeot driven by Condor.
CCTV recorded the collision on Limekiln Lane, in Vauxhall, before the Mini drove onto Burlington Street where it was abandoned.
Culshaw accepted he was in the back of the Mini while the court heard Paul Martin was also in the vehicle, alongside another man suspected to be either a third Martin brother, Steven Martin, or another alleged drug-dealer working for Shepherd, named in court as Connor Smith.
The occupants of the Mini fled in two groups of two.
The court heard Paul Martin and the unidentified fourth man ran into the Green Man pub, on Vauxhall Road, while John Martin and Culshaw ran towards Green Street.
Meanwhile witnesses described four men from the Peugeot burst into the nearby Castle Pub seemingly searching for someone.
One witness described one of the men holding a metal pole, and having “curly hair” protruding from under his cap. The court heard Lewis also had curly hair.
Paul Martin and his associate managed to escape from the Green Man Pub in an unidentified silver car, but Culshaw was chased and kicked to the floor by two men, until a resident named Mick Horgan intervened causing them to leave the scene.
Witnesses described Culshaw as “crying” and “clearly terrified”.
As Mr Horgan shouted at the attackers, John Martin managed to sneak through his open front door and escaped via a back window, stealing two kitchen knives in the process.
Free from their pursuers, the pair then reunited and took a taxi to the 'flower streets' area, near Shepherd’s home in Snowdrop Street.
It is here Ian Unsworth, QC, prosecuting, claimed they “regrouped” and planned to “seek revenge”.
The jury also heard that some time in the hours that followed graffiti stating ‘RIP Condor’ was daubed on the front door of the Castle Pub.
The Murder
What possessed the gunman to shoot Lewis remains unclear.
Culshaw, who is the only defendant to admit being at the scene, says the prosecution theory Lewis was a victim of mistaken identity is wide of the mark and that John Martin pulled the trigger for “no reason” in a fit of “rage or sheer madness”.
Lawyers for the Martin brothers claimed Culshaw is the likeliest gunman - although they both denied their clients were present.
But what we know from CCTV footage is that four men walked along the towpath, by Burrows Court, before disappearing under the Eldonian/Vauxhall Bridge at 10.30pm.
At 10.36pm, the lone figure of Lewis is recorded walking in the same direction oblivious to the danger ahead.
The moment of the gunshot was captured in the unlikely form of swans swimming on the canal.
Seconds after Lewis disappears under the bridge, the swans react suddenly, before the four killers sprint back the way they came.
Whether Lewis was the tragic victim of mistaken identity, or the convenient scapegoat for John Martin’s rage – it is clear his death had its roots in gang violence and the ability of the culprits to obtain a deadly firearm.
The breakthrough
The death of a child in such senseless circumstances predictably led to a enormous Merseyside Police operation to identify the killers.
But with no-one aware of a motive for anyone to shoot Lewis, and no links to his killers, the early days of the investigation were difficult for detectives.
Fortunately for the police, Jake Culshaw proved to be the weak link among the killers - seemingly unable to handle the weight of his actions.
The vital information came from a long-term drug addict and regular customer of Culshaw, named Helena Albiston.
She said he would often call round to her flat use her shower, and was there the day after the murder.
In a remarkable piece of evidence, she told the jury how he broke down crying when an ITV News report about Lewis's death played on her TV.
Under questioning by Mr Unsworth, she said: "When it come on the news he was crying, he had tears, he said ‘my life’s over, my life’s over."
She said Culshaw told her "that was me" referring to the shooting, which filled her with horror and disgust.
Crucially, when footage of police divers searching for evidence was aired, she said Culshaw made a comment about them looking in the wrong place and the murder weapon being further down the canal.
This information was later passed to police by a friend of Ms Albiston, leading to an expansion of the search area and the discovery of the murder weapon and a spent shotgun cartridge in early January.
During his police interviews, Culshaw implicated the Martin brothers, which allowed detectives to build a formidable case using other evidence, including mobile phone cell site data to place the killers in the area.
When asked what was the key breakthrough, Merseyside Police Detective Superintendent Tom Keaton said: “There was a number of key bits of evidence; I think the evidence provided by Helena Albiston, of Jake Culshaw’s admissions the following day, which allowed me to move the search further up the canal to then recover the murder weapon...
“There were a number of key bits of evidence but I would like to thank the witnesses who came forward and stood up in court, which has allowed the jury to come to the right verdict and allowed the judge to sentence those three men, Culshaw, Martin and Martin, for the murder of Lewis Dunne.”
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