By Editor Noor Qurashi
Two men accused of shooting a prison officer dead after he exposed an illegal affair were pictured attending Glastonbury Festival together.
Elias Morgan and Anthony Cleary allegedly murdered father-of-four Lenny Scott who was fatally injured outside a West Lancashire gym in February last year.
Morgan is said to have shot the victim in an ‘act of retaliation’ after Mr Scott, 33, exposed an illicit relationship involving him and a female prison guard at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool.
Cleary allegedly assisted Morgan by ‘delivering the van and bike so they could be used by a gunman who intended to kill Lenny Scott’.
Both men deny murder and Cleary also denies a second charge of manslaughter.
A timeline of Morgan and Cleary’s relationship has now revealed the pair go as far back as at least June 2023, when they were seen together at Glastonbury Festival.
Their attendance came just days after Morgan entered a not guilty plea to possession of an unauthorised phone recovered by Mr Scott.
The pictures show Morgan with his arm around Cleary with dozens of festival-goers in the background. In another image the pair can be seen lying down.
Court proceedings yesterday saw prosecutor Alex Leach KC take the jury through a timeline of events made up of CCTV, ANPR footage and cell site data.
Telematics data on Morgan’s Mercedes vehicle showed it was in Spain until December 11 2023 from at least July 11, the court was told.
Between November 12 and 19 that year, a number attributed to Morgan used networks in the UAE and in Spain until December 11.
A phone attributed to Morgan and Cleary then crossed from Spain into France on December 12, the court heard.
Cleary told an associate in a recovered Instagram message he was with ‘me bird, me mate’ and they were ‘bringing car back from Spain, few stops on the way’.
The pair were also pictured together in Paris in images recovered from Cleary’s handset before the Mercedes was back in Liverpool on December 13.
In the early hours of December 23, Morgan made a payment to Aer Lingus in Dublin and later made a payment to Manchester Airport, the court heard.
A phone attributed to Morgan was used across mainland Europe between December 24 and 30 and in Spain between New Year’s Eve and January 2, 2024.
Mr Leach said that on January 3, Morgan went on a ‘reconnaissance trip’ where, along with other unidentified men, he visited three addresses linked to Mr Scott.
These included the North West Mecca Gym in Speke, Mr Scott’s home address in Prescot and a gym at Peel House in Skelmersdale – outside which Mr Scott was later shot dead.
The court previously heard the root of Mr Scott’s alleged murder lay in his discovery of Morgan’s mobile phone on March 26, 2020.
On it, he found evidence that exposed Morgan’s sexual relationship with prison officer Sarah Williams.
Morgan told Mr Scott to ‘balls up the paperwork’ and even offered him £1,500 not to report it, jurors were told.
But the prison officer submitted the paperwork – and from that moment ‘Elias Morgan told Lenny Scott that he would get him, he said he would bide his time, but that he would get him’.
Jurors heard that on February 8, 2024, Mr Scott was leaving a gym in Skelmersdale, Lancashire ‘when he was approached by a man wearing a high-visibility jacket and carrying a handgun’.
‘The man shot him, six times, to the head and body,’ Mr Leach said.
‘Lenny Scott died of his injuries.
‘The murder was, the prosecution says, an act of retaliation.’
Jurors were told that mobile phone evidence showed the two men spent January 3 as a ‘day of reconnaissance’ as part of the plan to kill Mr Scott.
They visited locations including the area of his home as well as gyms he formerly and currently attended.
Mr Leach told the jury yesterday: ‘The evidence you are about to hear, when examined in detail, reveals a powerful image, one in which Elias Morgan, driven by a desire for revenge and reliant on Anthony Cleary for his assistance, planned and executed the murder of Lenny Scott. Both men, the prosecution says, are guilty of his murder.’
The trial continues.