ENGLAND — A teenager has been found guilty of the attempted murder of a man outside his home in Widnes.
Ryan Duggan was convicted following a three day trial at Chester Crown Court. He was also found guilty of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The incident took place on the evening of 15 October 2014. Duggan and a number of other youths had been congregating outside a group of homes where the victim Daniel Kennedy lives.
They were menacing the residents and had turned off the water supply to the flats.
The victim, who is 25, returned home at 8.30pm and took his dog for a walk. When he came back home he noticed that there was no water and, suspecting that they were responsible for this, went out to speak to the group. This resulted in a verbal altercation and the victim ended up chasing Duggan down a footpath.
He chased him round the back of the building and during this chase Duggan responded by stopping and turning to face the victim. He then pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and fired it at the victim.
The victim fell to the floor after sustaining serious injuries to his abdomen. Fearing that he may be shot at again he managed to get up off the floor and head back towards the block of flats. It was here that the emergency services were alerted and police and paramedics attended the scene. He was taken to Aintree Hospital in a serious condition. Following the incident an investigation was launched and officers from Cheshire Police’s Major Investigation Team spent weeks piecing together vital information in a bid to establish the full circumstances of what had happened.
On the night of the shooting officers carried out detailed searches of the local area. They recovered the victim’s mobile phone, which had fallen from his jacket pocket onto the floor following the shooting – it became apparent from the damage to the phone that it had taken the majority of the blast from a shotgun.
Two further phones were also recovered nearby – these were forensically examined and subsequently linked to Duggan.
A further search was carried out at the back of a block of flats on the opposite side to where the shooting took place – it was here that officers discovered the shotgun wrapped in clingfilm and concealed under a bush – with the spent cartridge still inside. A ballistics expert was also called in to examine the scene and further shotgun pellets and wadding were recovered.
After being identified as a suspect, a search warrant was executed at Duggan’s home address. Duggan was not inside the property at the time but as part of their search officers seized a jacket, which was forensically examined – DNA on the collar matched Duggan and traces of gunshot residue were recovered from the front and side of the jacket and also from the pocket.
Duggan was eventually traced to a flat in Burnley and, on 25 November, officers attended the flat and he was arrested and subsequently charged.
