Captured fugitive jailed over Merseyside shootings

Five men, including one still in execution, the order of serving the minimum 12 to 22 years for his involvement in the attacks of Liverpool

A leader of an underworld gang who escaped from prison last summer on the way his trial was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Anthony Downes, 26, was arrested in the Netherlands last week after eight months on the run. Downes and a partner, Kirk Bradley, both fled in a van on the way to Liverpool Crown Court in July 2011. Bradley, 26, is wanted by Merseyside Police.

The Woolwich Crown Court Friday, Downes and Bradley were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 22 years after being convicted in his absence for conspiracy to possess firearms with intent endanger life and conspiracy to cause damage with intent to endanger life.

Downes and Bradley were the ringleaders of a group responsible for a series of shootings and left a hand grenade in the front wall of the home of Liverpool Football, Kenny Dalglish, the jury heard at trial.

Dalglish was not the target band, the court heard. Instead, it was thought that the device was intended for a neighbor Dalglish, John Ball, a businessman who was also the subject of two shootings.

Three men were sentenced to life after admitting possessing firearms and causing criminal damage with intent to endanger life. Gary Wilson, 27, of Southport, was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years, Craig Riley, 25, of Stockbridge Village, will serve a minimum of 14 years and Joseph Farrell, 23, of Knowsley, at least 12 years.

Downes, homeless, and Bradley, of Formby, Merseyside, have been described as "blood brothers", the Court was told during the trial. We conducted a two-year campaign of terror against the people of Liverpool, but avoided personal involvement in the number of shootings and subsequent starts. Instead, he ordered other men to carry out his instructions.

Downes served a stretch of seven years in prison for multiple attacks on ATMs, but remained "control CEO and organizing events in his prison cell," said M . Justice Henriques.

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was arrested last week in Zeeland, checking holiday. He was caught with a loaded revolver and two false passports.

The judge said Bradley, who was convicted of theft 15 years. "[It] is clearly a very dangerous man Members of the public right-thinking feel disgust and indignation about the bitter campaign that led Bradley and co-managed."

Among his crimes, which took place between 2009 and 2010, the group has taken responsibility for the abduction and murder of a man and leave him in a forest, for the filming of another man in a bar, a man who is being taken dead troublemakers gatecrashing expelled because of a party, and several grenade attacks.

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