Carl Seaton’s partner heard him get shot five times while she was on the phone to him
A man who starred in a film about the threat of gun crime was shot dead as he left a pub while his horrified girlfriend listened on over the phone. Carl Seaton, 28, was shot five times after leaving the Weighing Machine pub on Wavertree Road in the early hours of December 15 2002.
Two masked men armed with a semi-automatic pistol waited on nearby Martensen Street before carrying out the execution at around 12.45am. Just days after his murder, Mr Seaton’s partner – 17-year-old student Jenny Crawford – told the ECHO how she ran to the scene while she spoke to him on the phone. Friends tried to hold her back as she desperately battled to get to him.
Ms Crawford told the ECHO in 2002: “I had left Carl in the pub and gone to get a taxi but changed my mind and phoned him from a phone box down the road, saying I was coming back. He said he was just turning into the street and the phone went dead – he must have dropped it because he had been shot. When I tried to phone back it was just ringing out.”
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Original reports said a woman Mr Seaton was with had been hit by a bullet but police ruled out the early claim. Ms Crawford added: “He had left at the same time as a few friends. As I got nearer, some of them stopped me going past.
“I pushed my way through as others tried to drag me back. I was one minute too late.” Mr Seaton’s mum Ann, who lived on nearby Gladstone Road with her daughter, arrived at the scene soon after just to find his body being taken from the scene.
It later emerged that Mr Seaton had starred in a 1998 film about the rise of gun crime in Britain’s inner cities. He played the role of a young man who bought a gun to protect himself having been threatened with violence. Later in the film he is seen practising how to use the gun.
Mr Seaton’s shooting followed a separate shooting – the murder of Ray Craven. Mr Craven, a man of similar age was shot dead in another pub minutes down the road. Detectives looked into if the killings were connected and armed police patrolled the streets of Wavertree in the following days.
However, police were unable to find a link. Court proceedings in 2003 revealed that Mr Craven was an innocent bystander who was caught in the crossfire of a gangland hit. Three men were jailed for his murder.
Mrs Seaton told the ECHO on the one year anniversary of her son’s death that she was speaking out in a bid to break the wall of silence stopping detectives from catching his killers. Reports detailed that police were convinced that Mr Seaton, who was later revealed to be a drug dealer, knew his killers and they carried out the murder after a petty argument spiralled out of control.
Detectives claimed Mr Seaton was part of a group of friends who drank in the Weighing Machine and some of them knew who was behind the shooting. Mrs Seaton told the ECHO how her son had recently lost his two young daughters Savannah and Chloe to leukaemia and meningitis.
She said: “We all know that some of his group of old friends can help catch the people who murdered him. They should remember Carl for the good friend he was and come forward – these are murderers who need to be in prison.
“He was a wonderful son who would do anything to help his family and the people he was close to. I still see some of his old friends and I know they can help.”
In 2004, a suspect was charged with Mr Seaton’s murder and appeared at Liverpool Crown Court. However, in extraordinary events, 12 witnesses failed to attend court and summonses and warrants were issued. The court proceedings heard that, despite the efforts of police, many could not be traced.
The judge Mr Justice Elais ordered the murder charge to be discontinued following complaints from the suspect’s defence that the client would not receive a fair trial because of the lack of witnesses and also the fact one crucial eyewitness had given contradictory statements.
The judge said: “I recognise, reluctantly but realistically, the difficulties this defendant would have faced in establishing his innocence without these crucial witnesses. This is an exceptional case.” At least one of the missing witnesses were later jailed for contempt of court.
Seven years later, in 2011, two of Mr Seaton’s relatives – brother Kenneth and cousin Brett Williams – were jailed for a “sickening” attack on five men. The court heard that ongoing tensions over the unsolved murder sparked a savage knife and hammer attack that saw the youths slashed and stabbed.
One 17-year-old even had a knife thrust inside his mouth and torn up to his ear while a barmaid was also threatened. The court heard one of the group who was attacked was arrested in connection with the murder but never charged. And 22 years on from Mr Seaton’s murder, no one is yet to be convicted.
Merseyside Police has asked for anyone who may have information which could progress the investigation to come forward. A spokesperson for Merseyside Police’s serious crime review unit (SCRU) said: “Carl’s family and friends have sadly never had the answers they deserve and we remain committed to getting justice for them.
“Although it has been two decades since his murder no case is every closed and we will continue to follow up any new lines of enquiry. Any piece of information could be the key to progressing this investigation, however trivial you think it may be, so please call 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 if you can help.”