The men at the centre of the Ashley Dale murder trial as jury retires to consider evidence

The jury in the Ashley Dale murder trial has retired to consider its verdicts after seven weeks of often harrowing evidence. Jurors have now begun the job of deliberating on the fate of six men charged in connection with the 28-year-old's death in August last year.

Ms Dale was shot dead after a gunman forced his way into her home in Old Swan, Liverpool, and fired multiple shots in the early hours of Sunday, August 21. Merseyside Police were called to the scene by concerned neighbours, who heard shots and saw the body of a young woman lying in the garden of the property on Leinster Road.

Emergency services attended and found her in the rear garden with gunshot wounds to her body. She was taken to hospital but sadly died a short time later, according to Merseyside Police.

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James Witham, 41, who admits manslaughter but denies murder, barged through her front door in Leinster Road, Old Swan, and sprayed the inside of the property with bullets from a Skorpion sub-machine gun. One of those 9mm bullets struck Ms Dale in the abdomen, causing catastrophic injuries, reports the Liverpool Echo.

One man pulled the trigger, but the task of the jury will be to determine whether he acted alone or whether he was a "foot-soldier" for alleged organised crime boss Niall Barry and his co-accused.

The prosecution say Barry, 26, was in a "heavy beef" with Ashley's live-in boyfriend, Lee Harrison, who was out in the city centre at the time. At the time of the shooting, Barry was at a flat in Pilch Lane,