A woman heard a "loud bang" before finding a teenager dying in her front garden, a murder trial has been told.
Vinny Waddington died aged 18 nearly eight years ago, having been blasted in the chest with a shotgun after a crash on Banks Road in Garston. David Ungi, 31, is currently standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of murdering the teen.
Jurors were today read statements from a couple who had lived at the junction of Banks Road and Banks Lane for nearly 20 years at the time of the incident in 2015. Paul Hankinson and Olive Smith had been out shopping during the evening before returning home, with the former having been lying down upstairs at around 8.30pm when he heard a "loud bang after a screeching noise".
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He described seeing "males in the garden" before Ms Smith went into the garden and shouted "Paul, you'd best phone an ambulance". Mr Hankinson then saw a man outside his house "lying on his front, not saying anything and totally unconscious".
Ms Smith stated that she had been on the computer when she heard "tyres screeching then a loud bang" followed by a "series of noises, like a backfiring exhaust, and male voices shouting". She then looked out of the window and saw "two lads going past".
Her statement added: "I then went out of my front door and immediately saw a male on the floor in the front garden. He was not moving - I thought he was pretending at first, but I couldn't see him breathing."
Ms Smith described herself as being "in a panic", but dialled 999 after being handed a phone by her partner. Paramedics then arrived at the scene after what "seemed like a lifetime".
The court was played a transcript of this call with the emergency services, in which she said: "There's a lad collapsed on me front, he looks in a bad way. I don't know how the heck he's jumped the fence."
Mr Hankinson then took hold of the phone in order to be instructed on how to give chest compressions, and told the operator: "I don't know whether he got threw off the motorbike over the fence. Come on kid."
Another resident, Beverley Jackson, was called to give evidence via video link today. She recounted: "We heard a crash, as if the car had hit either the lamppost or the bollard opposite our house. There was a crack, like a car backfiring.
"My dad said 'that's a shot that, that's a gunshot'. We got up to go and see if there was anything we could do."
Ms Jackson recalled seeing three men exiting the vehicle, one of whom appeared to be carrying a gun after getting out of the front passenger seat. She said of this: "He just took a couple of steps, and it looked like he remembered something and went back to the car and retrieved something.
"He held it tight to his side. It was like a strap hanging down.
"As he approached me, I could see a long barrel. It was tight against his leg."
Ms Jackson then saw a man in a nearby garden, adding: "He raised his hands and he was shouting at me to help. 'Come and help, there's someone in my garden and he's been shot'."
Peter Glenser KC told the court during the prosecution's opening that Mr Waddington was "gunned down in cold blood" on the evening of July 14, 2015. He had been the pillion passenger of a scrambler bike which was involved in a crash with a blue Audi A3 before he was shot dead.
The jury heard that "three men were responsible for his murder", with two men - Luke Kendrick and Ryan Bate - having previously been found guilty. Mr Glenser described Ungi, formerly of Melbreck Road in Allerton, as the "third man".
The shooting came a day Liam Waddington had been involved in an argument with Ungi, then 23, at Pro Flex Gym. In a WhatsApp message sent to his girlfriend in the early afternoon of July 13, Vinny said: "Our kid has just had murder with David Ungi in the gym, it's going off."
The following evening, the car and two motorbikes were seen "riding around" Garston and Speke. One witness described hearing an "exchange of words" between the Audi and one bike, which was described by another member of the public as driving "fast and stupidly".
The vehicles then crashed at around 8.45pm, with the red scrambler coming to rest underneath the car. An occupant of the Audi was subsequently said to have shot both Mr Waddington and Francis Humphries, the rider of the motorbike.
The former managed to flee to the garden of a nearby house in the aftermath. He was later rushed to the Royal Liverpool Hospital, but died as a result of a shotgun wound to the left-hand side of his chest.
Mr Humphries meanwhile managed to "get himself away from the three men" and was driven away by a friend who happened to be passing the scene in his car. He too attended hospital that evening after suffering "three to four wounds from shotgun pellets", but was not seriously injured and was discharged shortly afterwards.
Ungi's DNA was then discovered on a Lucozade bottle in the rear of the car in the passenger's side. The same night, he was in contact with his brother Michael Riccio as he "started to plan his flight from the United Kingdom to the continent".
The two men drove down to Dover the following morning before boarding a ferry to France. Mr Riccio returned to England two days later.
Mr Glenser said that "not much is known" of Ungi's subsequent movements, but in May 2022 police in Spain received intelligence that he was "hiding out" in a town called Coin on the Costa Del Sol. They "kept watch" on a house for several days before tailing him to a gym on May 5 last year and arresting him before his extradition back to the UK.
Ungi, who is defended by Caroline Goodwin KC, denies murder and attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm. The trial, before Justice Julian Goose, continues.
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