The vicious gang behind grandmother's gun murder

The cold-blooded murder of Jackie Rutter in Wirral was intended to send a message.

On an October night in 2022, the grandmother-of-five opened her front door in Meadowbrook Road, Moreton, and found herself faced with a masked gunman.

Shortly after 01:00 GMT the killer fired a self-loading handgun at her chest from point-blank range, causing her rapid death.

But it was not the 53-year-old who had crossed the young killer, later identified by detectives as James Byrne, then 21.

Instead her death was payback for the activities of her sons - Peter and Steven Rutter - who were described by prosecutors as "notorious" for robbing drug dealers in the local area.

Jackie Rutter had not long before texted her daughter bemoaning the fact her son Peter "couldn't score [buy drugs]" because he had "ripped every [expletive] off".

Two days before the shooting, Byrne had found himself the latest drug-dealer to fall victim to the brothers.

Liverpool Crown Court heard how on 28 October - two days before the shooting - they snatched money and a phone used to conduct Byrne's drug-dealing business from either Byrne or his associates behind a row of shops on Fleet Croft Road in Birkenhead.

The loss of the phone was a particular blow, due to the valuable list of Class A drugs customers saved in its contacts as part of the so-called "JJ Line".

The Rutter brothers' decision to steal it proved to be a catastrophic mistake.

Byrne was involved in a street gang, based around the Woodchurch estate in Wirral, already considered exceptionally violent.

High Court judge Mr Justice Goose, who this week sentenced Byrne to a minimum of 40 years in prison, told the killer: "Whilst Jacqueline Rutter's life was blighted by her drug addiction, she was nothing to do with the JJ Line business.

"She was the victim of the extreme violence that is a common currency of drug dealers."

He added: "This was a killing for revenge."

At the time of Jackie's murder the gang were considered one of the most high-risk organised crime groups in Merseyside by police, due to their readiness to use guns.

While there was an element of chaos and recklessness to much of their activity, there was also evidence of relatively organised and commercial scale drug-dealing.

The gang were behind drug-supply lines stretching into Wales and Exeter, and at least some Woodchurch associates used the EncroChat encrypted phone network to conduct business - including brokering the trade of firearms.

But it was the extreme violence that worried Merseyside Police most of all.

With Byrne's conviction, Woodchurch gang members have now been proven to be responsible for two fatal shootings in the space of two months in winter 2022.

The second killing proved to be even more high-profile - the shooting of Elle Edwards outside a pub in Wallasey on Christmas Eve by fellow Woodchurch drug-dealer Connor Chapman.

Unlike Jackie Rutter, she was not the intended target.

The 26-year-old was struck by sub-machine gun bullets that were intended for two men standing nearby who were linked to a rival gang based around Wirral's Beechwood estate - separated from Woodchurch by the M53 motorway.

Across the course of 2022, the two groups had been locked in an escalating and increasingly bloody feud.

James Byrne and his twin brother, Curtis Byrne, were behind at least one other shooting linked to the dispute.

Before James Byrne was charged with Jackie Rutter's murder, he and his brother were found guilty of cornering a 17-year-old boy at a bus-stop in Fender Way.

The teenager was shot at six times by a number of men on electric bikes, including the Byrne twins, but although he was struck in the leg he was able to escape with his life.

The pair were each convicted of attempted murder and firearms offences over that shooting and jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years and eight months in prison in July 2024.

Curtis Byrne was himself shot in the leg on 3 December that year, in Orrets Meadow Road on the Woodchurch estate - an incident cited by prosecutors as part of the backdrop to the murder of Elle Edwards.

Since the arrests of the Byrne twins, Chapman, and others linked to the gang-feud, there has been a significant drop in serious gun crime in Wirral.

After James Byrne and three accomplices were sentenced on Thursday, Jackie Rutter's daughter-in-law Jemma Rixon said: "To us she had a heart of gold and loved everybody. Jackie didn't have a bad bone in her body.

"She will not be defined by what's happened to her.

"Instead, she will be remembered as the beautiful mother and grandmother she was."

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