Ashley Dale's mother says she is 'more angry' with her daughter's 'despicable' boyfriend than her killers
20 November 2023, 21:12 | Updated: 20 November 2023, 21:20
The mother of a woman who was shot at her own home has said she is more angry at her daughter's "despicable" boyfriend that the killers were targeting than the murderers themselves.
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Ashley Dale's family today said she "fell in love with the wrong boy" as her mother Julie Dale stressed how "very, very angry" she was at the partner following her death.
Niall Barry, 26, Sean Zeisz, 28, James Witham, 41, and Joseph Peers, 29, were all found guilty of murder of Ms Dale's murder today.
Ms Dale was killed amid a feud with involving her partner Lee Harrison, 26, who the court heard was associated with an organised crime group in Huyton, Liverpool.
Harrison had been in a relationship with Ms Dale for around five years prior to her death in August earlier this year.
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."
She added: "The way he's acted since this has happened has been absolutely despicable.
"We've had no remorse from him. We've had no support from him. We have no admittance that it's anything to do with him.
"He's given us any number of reasons of what he's heard it's to do with and none of them include him.
"He still carries on going about his life, leaving the country, going on holidays, lording it up, shall we say, like nothing's happened and nothing's changed for him and it's absolutely disgusting, it really is."
During the trial, the court heard since his girlfriend's death Harrison had been "totally unco-operative" with police, and had been to Dubai on several occasions.
Ms Dale's stepfather Rob Jones said: "The problem we keep coming back to is Ashley fell in love with the wrong boy.
"I'm not saying for one minute Ashley did not love him, I'm saying he doesn't love her, clearly, by actions."
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.
"But, sitting in court having the defendants there and seeing them and then listening and seeing the horrific details of what happened to her and how she was just basically just left on her own to die. It's horrendous."
During the trial the court was shown photos of Ms Dale and Harrison with some of the defendants.
Witham, who admitted firing the shot which killed Ms Dale, was seen in one undated picture making a peace sign as he posed with Ms Dale and Harrison.
Julie Dale said: "The difficult thing is, most of the defendants, pretty much all of them, knew Ashley and have known her on a friendly basis.
"Never mind to do what they did, but then to get up and lie about it and talk about her. Hearing them mention her name just makes me so angry."
Speaking to anyone involved in gun crime, she added: "Just think about how it affects so many people.
"We're broken, our life is never, ever going to be the same ever again."
