Court sees footage of moment that prison officer was shot and fatally injured at gym in Skelmersdale

ITV News

25-06-2025

A jury has been shown footage of the moment a prison officer was ambushed and shot outside a gym in Skelmersdale.
Father-of-three Lenny Scott suffered fatal injuries when he was shot on Peel Road in Skelmersdale on February 8 2024. Elias Morgan and Anthony Cleary are on trial at Preston Crown Court accused of his murder.
Opening the case yesterday prosecutor Alex Leach, KC, told the jury Mr. Scott had been 'murdered as an act of retaliation' after he exposed an illicit relationship between convict Morgan and one of his prisoner officer colleagues.
The nine men and four women on the jury heard that after failing to convince Mr Scott not to report the phone to his superiors, Morgan told him 'I'll bide my time, but I promise I will get you' before making a gun gesture.
Almost four years after Mr Scott found the phone, he was shot six times by a gunman wearing a high-visibility jacket and carrying a handgun. The gunman, who approached on foot, later escaped the area riding an electric motorbike.
Addressing the court, Mr Leach played the jury CCTV footage of the moment Mr Scott was shot outside the gym.
The footage showed the gunman waiting in the car park before approaching Mr Scott and discharging a number of shots before fleeing from the scene.
Two members of Mr Scott's family, sitting in the public gallery dabbed at their eyes when the footage was played.
Mr Leach told the jury: "The evidence you are about to hear, when examined in detail, reveals a powerful image, one in which Elias Morgan, driven by a desire for revenge and reliant on Anthony Cleary for his assistance, planned and executed the murder of Lenny Scott.
"Both men, the prosecution says, are guilty of his murder."
The prosecution told the jury that on January 4 2024 Morgan carried out a 'day of reconnaissance, a day of planning, for the murder that was to follow'.
The jury heard he visited three locations with an 'obvious connection to Lenny Scott', including his home address, a gym he formerly frequented in Speke, Liverpool, and the Peel House gym where he was later shot.
The court heard Cleary, through his job as a car transporter driver, asked to use a low-loader truck to transport his friend's van to Skelmersdale.
Shortly after 6pm on 7 February, he drove a Vauxhall Combo van, belonging to a cleaning business run by Morgan's brother Ezra, off the low-loader and left it on Daybrook in Skelmersdale.
Mr Leach told the jury: "The prosecution says that Anthony Cleary had delivered the van to a location close enough to the intended scene of the shooting for the gunman who was to use it to access the electric motorbike that it contained, and ride to the Peel House Gym, using the ginnels that connected Daybrook to the Peel House estate.
"Following the shooting, those ginnels would also provide a means of escaping the scene that could not be followed by other vehicles, allowing the gunman time to load the bike onto the van and to leave the area undetected."
The court was told that Cleary also sent Morgan a link to a Google Map of the area around Peel Road, which was where Mr Scott was shot.
Mr Leach said shortly after 4.30pm on the day of Mr Scott's death, Morgan drove his courtesy car, a Ford Focus, to his family home.
Here, the prosecution said, he 'changed vehicles' and began using a Mercedes GLC, insured to his mother and used by him.
Mr Leach said: "It was captured on CCTV from 4.59pm, leaving Highgate Street."
Mr Leach told the jury that the Mercedes was captured that same day on Darfield in Skelmersdale, before a figure walked from the car to Daybrook, where the van had been parked.
Between 6.06pm and 6.27pm, a person riding an electric motorbike was captured 'performing a dry run to the gym and back to Daybrook' and the location of the parked Mercedes, the court heard.
Mr Leach told the court: "The footage is not sufficient to allow for an identification of Elias Morgan but, the prosecution says, when viewed against all of the surrounding evidence, the overwhelming inference is that Elias Morgan was the person riding that bike."
Mr Leach said the Mercedes was later captured on CCTV being moved from Darfield to Denholme, saying: "The prosecution says that Elias Morgan was moving his Mercedes GLC out of the immediate vicinity, to a location where it could safely remain until he returned to collect it.
"He did not intend to leave the scene in that Mercedes. Instead, the prosecution says, he left the scene in the van, into which he returned the electric motorbike, following the shooting."
The court was told that Morgan and Cleary spoke on a WhatsApp call shortly after 11pm before the latter searched Google for "skem news now".
He later accessed a tweet from 'SkemPolice' explaining the increased police presence, Mr Leach said.
Cleary also accessed a YouTube video titled 'How to Check & Delete iPhone Location History'", while Morgan 'removed the SIM card for that number from his iPhone 12 mini handset and replaced it with a newly activated number', said Mr Leach.
The Mercedes was later seen on 13 ebruary at Maghull Baptist Church, with CCTV capturing "the driver appearing to change the vehicle's number plates".
The court heard the Mercedes' movements later showed it moving around south Liverpool, before its driver was "seen removing a bag from the boot of the vehicle and walking away" after parking on Ivydale Road in Mossley Hill.
Mr Leach said it had been fitted with further false number plates.
Morgan's fingerprints were found on both the front and rear plates and blood containing his DNA was also found on wiring that sat behind a control panel removed from the car and left on Queens Drive, the court heard.
A search of Morgan's home address on Highgate Street found a charger for a Sur-Ron electric bike, while paperwork and a black jacket, consistent with that worn by the male seen moving the Mercedes, was found at a property used by him at Irwell Chambers in Liverpool City Centre, the jury was told.
Mr Leach said: "In the communal area outside 43 Irwell Chambers were the keys for the Mercedes GLC, last used to lock the vehicle when it was left, for the final time, on Ivydale Road."
Both Morgan and Cleary were charged with Mr Scott's murder in June 2024.
Morgan, 35, of Highgate Street, and Cleary, 29, of Smithdown Lane, both deny murder. Cleary also denies a second count of manslaughter. The trial before Mr Justice Goose continues.