A GRENADE was planted under a car outside a family home in Orford in a feud between rival gangs, a court has heard.

Four men are accused of orchestrating the terrifying attack after a series of incidents across the town - including torching the car of alleged crime boss Leon Cullen, who is currently on the run from police.

Warrington Guardian:

Leon Cullen

It is believed that a gym in Bewsey in an arson attack before an explosive device was planted under a car outside a house in Orford where four children were sleeping upstairs.

A trial at Liverpool Crown Court - which began on Friday, March 22 - has heard that an anonymous 999 call was made from a phone booth on Knutsford Road in Latchford at around 12.30am on Saturday, February 24 2018.

The call, which lasted one minute and 27 seconds, reported that a grenade had been placed under a white Vauxhall Insignia outside a family home on Cleveland Road and that ‘it was something to do with a man called Shaun Smith’.

Police attended the scene and carried out a search of the area, with a hand grenade with the firing pin still in it discovered under the vehicle.

A bomb disposal team was called out and all properties within 50 metres evacuated, with residents taken to the nearby McDonald’s on Winwick Road for shelter.

The device was removed from under the car before a controlled explosion was carried out on wasteland nearby.

Warrington Guardian:

A hole left by the controlled explosion

This incident sparked a police investigation codenamed Operation Fullbacks, which linked the explosive to a series of crimes that had followed on from the breakup of a drugs gang operating in the Warrington area.

Members of the cocaine racket were arrested in January 2018 and later jailed for a total of 185 years in early 2019.

Among them was Anthony Cullen, who was handed 27 years behind bars.

Warrington Guardian:

Anthony Cullen

But his twin brother Leon Cullen managed to evade police and remains at large, believed to have fled the country.

The series of targeted attacks began on Wednesday, February 21 2018, with an arson attack at Smithy’s Gym on Bewsey Road - which was ‘completely ravaged’ by fire.

Owned by Shaun Smith - who starred in Netflix series Bare Knuckle Fight Club and Vice documentary the UK’s Scariest Debt Collector - firefighters found a petrol can with the top removed at the premises following the blaze.

At around 8.15am on Friday, February 23 2018 - the day leading up to the grenade being discovered - two bricks were thrown through the kitchen window of a house on Honister Avenue in Orford where Leon Cullen lived with his partner.

That night at around 7.30pm, a BMW car on the driveway of the same property was set on fire.

A number of phone calls from ‘spoofed’ numbers were also made to Leon Cullen’s girlfriend shortly before midnight.

Meanwhile, the homeowners of the Cleveland Road property have a son who is also named Leon and regularly trains and assists at Smithy’s Gym.

His mum ‘has no idea why anyone would target their address in such a way’, the court heard.

She heard ‘a thud, as if something had hit their car’ at around 11.30pm that evening but did not see anything suspicious when they looked out of the window.

The prosecution believes that this was intended ‘to send a message out’.

Warrington Guardian:

Firefighters operating a crane on the scene on Cleveland Road following the grenade find

Thirty-three-year-old Robert Musson, of Biggin Court in Padgate, is alleged to have made the anonymous 999 call while DNA from 29-year-old William ‘Billy’ Jones, of Forster Street in Orford, was found on the pin of the grenade.

Mobile phone signals place 31-year-old Kyle Stewart, of Greenwood Crescent in Orford, in the area of Cleveland Road in the evening in question.

And 31-year-old Wesley Williamson, of Grasmere Avenue in Orford, has been linked by the prosecution to the trio via a series of phone calls on the same night.

Musson, Stewart, Williamson and Jones were all arrested on Tuesday, October 9, with the latter claiming that he had ‘never touched a grenade in his life’.

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All four defendants deny charges of conspiracy to possess explosives for an unlawful purpose in the ongoing trial before judge Brian Cummings.

Prosecuting barrister Simon Mills told the court: “This was a working grenade, left on the driveway of a family home.

“It has all the appearance of being a warning, and the person who made the call to the police plainly knew the grenade was there and it was intended for the grenade to be found to send a message out.

“The prosecution says this event was linked to a series of events in the area that followed on from the police breaking up an organised crime gang in Warrington whose business was the commercial, wholesale supply of cocaine.

“This gang was led by two men, one of whom was Leon Cullen - the main arrests in that case had taken place on January 10 2018, but Leon Cullen managed to get away and has not been found since.

“He is believed to have gone abroad.

“There are no conceivable lawful purposes for which any of these defendants could possess, or have under their control, a viable hand grenade.

“The grenade wasn’t left on the driveway by accident - the prosecution says that these four defendants participated with others in an agreement for that grenade to be taken to the driveway and left there.”

Expected to last for several weeks, the trial continues.