In the early hours of August 21, 2022, Merseyside Police officers were called to a property in Old Swan and found a young woman lying in the rear garden with gunshot wounds. Paramedics provided CPR at the scene, and she was taken to hospital but sadly died a short time later.
Her name was Ashley Dale. She was not the intended target of the gunman who burst into her home on Leinster Road and opened fire.
Her name was Ashley Dale. She was not the intended target of the gunman who burst into her home on Leinster Road and opened fire.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Like I say, she was very driven and yeah, she made me proud every day.
00:10 Officers were called to an address in Old Swan around 12.40am on August 21st 2022 following
00:16 reports of concern for a woman at the property. Emergency services attended and found Ashley
00:21 Dale in the rear garden of the property with gunshot wounds to her body. Paramedics provided
00:28 CPR at the scene and Ashley was taken to hospital but sadly died a short time later.
00:34 The family of 28-year-old Ashley described her as a hard-working young woman who had
00:39 her entire life ahead of her. She'd just been promoted at her job, she was an environmental
00:44 health officer with Knowsley Council. However, her life was tragically cut short before she
00:49 was able to take up her new role.
00:52 She was a happy, normal, young woman. She was career driven, happy in her job and her
01:03 chosen career. She just went about her life in a normal way really. She just wanted the
01:13 same things as most young women of that age wanted. She was happy, she was family orientated,
01:21 loved her two sisters, her younger sisters which me and Rob have got together. She loved
01:28 her house, she was very house proud, she loved her clothes, she loved fashion. Just very
01:34 average and normal, whatever that is really.
01:39 A total of 15 arrests were made during Maersk Police's investigations into her death. The
01:43 force released CCTV footage of a car believed to have driven in the area shortly before
01:48 the incident was reported. Inquiries identified this as a grey Hyundai i30N. The clip shows
01:54 the car and page marks earlier in the evening of the murder.
02:00 In my first appeal, I asked for people to come forward who were on foot in the street
02:07 in Leinster Road and that appeal still stands. We know that there are still people in the
02:15 community walking around, whether it be walking home, maybe coming home from after being on
02:20 a night out or just milling about in the street at the time when this took place, which was
02:28 at around half past midnight. I still want those people to come forward and make contact
02:33 with us.
02:34 From DNA and trawling through hundreds of hours of CCTV to seizing thousands of exhibits
02:40 over which 300 were digital devices, it was established Ashley was not the intended target
02:46 of the shooting at her home on Leinster Road. However, it was Ashley's own phone, which
02:52 was found just an arm's length away from her, that would prove to contain the most significant
02:58 evidence of the events that led up to her tragic murder.
03:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]