The mother of an ex-prison officer shot dead in ‘retaliation’ after he exposed an affair between a convict and a female officer has revealed her son was chillingly warned by the accused, ‘I promise I’ll get you’, a court has heard.
Lenny Scott, 33, was fatally injured when he was shot six times by the gunman wearing a hi-vis jacket outside a gym on Peel Road in Skelmersdale, West Lancashire, on February 8, 2024.
Alleged gunman Elias Morgan is accused of shooting the father-of-three after Mr Scott exposed an illicit relationship involving him and a female officer at HMP Altcourse, Preston Crown Court heard.
The alleged threat made four years before Mr Scott’s death was ‘the first thing that came to mind’, his mother told police after the killing.
Alex Leach KC, prosecuting, told the jury that after Mr Scott refused a £1,500 offer to not report a phone containing evidence of the relationship, Morgan told him ‘I’ll bide my time, but I promise I will get you’ before making a gun gesture.
Co-defendant Anthony Cleary is alleged to have assisted Morgan in the ‘revenge plot’ by ‘delivering the van and bike so they could be used by a gunman who intended to kill Lenny Scott’.
Both men deny murder, while Cleary also denies a second charge of manslaughter.
The court heard a pre-recorded police interview on Thursday from Mr Scott’s mother, Paula.
The mother of Lenny Scott (pictured), an ex-prison officer shot dead in ‘retaliation’ after he exposed an affair between a convict and a female officer, has revealed her son was chillingly warned by the accused, ‘I promise I’ll get you’
Alleged gunman Elias Morgan (pictured) is accused of shooting the father-of-three after Mr Scott exposed an illicit relationship involving him and a female officer at HMP Altcourse
Prison officer Sarah Williams (pictured) was involved in an illicit relationship with Morgan
She told the officer her son ‘liked to do things right…liked to speak up’.
But she said he had also complained about ‘corrupt prison officers’ during his time working in prisons in Birmingham and HMP Altcourse.
Mrs Scott told the detective that 2020 was ‘a bad year’ for her son, which included him being threatened in March.
She told the interviewer that Mr Scott’s partner, Lucy Griffiths, had rung her and said there had been a problem at work.
She said: ‘The police were involved and he had a threat and they knew their home address. I think Lenny played it down with me.
‘He was definitely rattled by it…The fire service came and fitted alarms just in case there was anything thrown at the house.
‘He was definitely upset by it and worried about the children. In the threat it said about his home address and they even named the children. It wasn’t difficult as he had their names on his arm.
‘I asked “is everything okay” and he said yes, the police were involved. He said he had to go into a cell and they found a phone.
‘The lad threatened him and somebody else he was with. He said along the lines of “you’re done for” but I couldn’t swear by the words…He was second-guessing things, he was making a joke about things but it wasn’t. It changed things for him from then.
The roots of the 33-year-old’s killing lay in his former job at Altcourse prison (pictured) in Liverpool nearly four years earlier, a murder trial jury was told
‘He said “you don’t know what it’s like working there, you don’t understand how little they value my life”. He didn’t feel supported by it.
‘Before then he felt like nothing could get to him but after he started thinking he had children. It just rattled him.
‘However, he still got on with work and went every day and tried his best. He used to tell me there were corrupt prison officers. It sort of changed his opinion of the Prison Service after that threat.’
Mrs Scott told the court her son was suspended from his role as a prison officer after he punched an inmate during an unrelated incident.
She said he told her: ‘The last year I have had to deal with corrupt prison officers and they have now turned on me’. He was later dismissed over the same incident.
Mrs Scott told the court that the corrupt officer in question was a ‘female officer called Sarah’.
The court heard Mr Scott was asked twice to be a witness and his mum ‘assumed it was in relation to the threat and the corrupt prison officer’.
However, the court heard Mr Scott didn’t want to ‘put his family in jeopardy by going and being a witness’.
Alleged gunman Elias Morgan and co-defendant Anthony Cleary deny murder, while Cleary also denies a second charge of manslaughter. Pictured: Preston Crown Court
Mrs Scott added: ‘He would have been a witness and done anything if he was still at the prison,’ but felt unsupported following his dismissal.
On the day of her son’s killing, Mrs Scott said he had picked up one of his children from school because they were ill, before dropping him at Ms Griffiths’ house.
He then went to the gym at Peel House in Skelmersdale where he trained in ju-jitsu.
Mrs Scott said: ‘I sent him a text saying I was going to pick up some medicine. He said I’ve taken him to Lucy’s and I’m going to the gym.
‘He must have been going in when I texted him and said “have you fed the dog?” He rang and said he hadn’t. That was the last time I spoke with him.’
She added she phoned Merseyside Police at around 10pm to ask for some advice when she hadn’t heard from him for some time.
Officers from Lancashire Constabulary arrived at her house shortly before 2am the next morning.
She told the detective: ‘I don’t know why but from the second they said he had been shot, we don’t know people who live in that world, but straight away that prison came to light.
‘I think a detective came out that night and I’m almost certain I told him about the prison straight away. It’s the only thing you think. It’s the only time he has mixed with people like that.’
She added: ‘As part of prison life they get threats but they aren’t substantial. There would definitely be comments like ‘I know where you park your car’ but he just brushed those off. It was just a way of life.
‘The minute after I found out about this, the first thing that came to my mind was that threat. There was nothing else that came close.’
Mrs Scott said at the time of her son’s death he was ‘in his best job’ working for Gousto and ‘was in the best place really’.
She earlier told the court how her son had previously been a firefighter in the RAF, before working a number of jobs before joining the Prison Service.
She said the dad-of-three was a ‘homebody’ who had a ‘passion for animals’.
Opening the case earlier this week, Mr Leach told the court that Mr Scott found the phone in Morgan’s cell on March 26 2020.
The court heard not only was possession of the phone a criminal offence, but ‘Morgan knew there was evidence on it which would lead to the discovery of a sexual relationship between him and a female prison officer’.
The prosecution alleged Morgan made a number of threats towards Mr Scott, including that a car was outside his family home.
Mr Scott’s manager at the prison, John Davies, wrote in a statement that ‘the way Lenny reacted is something I have never heard or seen before’.
When the iPhone was examined, it ‘revealed Elias Morgan was engaged in a sexual relationship with another prison officer, Sarah Williams’, the court heard.
Mr Leach added: ‘It was clear that she had provided Elias Morgan with details about other prisoners. The court heard Mr Scott gave a witness statement and Morgan was arrested and interviewed under caution.
Morgan, who had been moved away from Mr Scott’s wing 10 days after the ‘threats’, was remanded back into custody between July 2021 and October 2022 – and in April 2023 was charged with unauthorised possession of the mobile phone. Williams admitted three offences of misconduct in a public officer and a computer misuse offence.
Morgan pleaded not guilty – and his case was adjourned until February 19 – 11 days after Mr Scott was killed.
Mr Leach said: ‘On the 8th February 2024, almost four years later, Lenny Scott was coming out of his gym at Peel House in Skelmersdale 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. Lenny Scott died of his injuries. The man travelled to and escaped from the scene on an electric motorbike, which he loaded onto the back of a van, a short distance away, before driving back towards Liverpool. The murder was, the prosecution says, an act of retaliation.
‘The prosecution says that once you’ve heard the evidence, you will be sure that, at the very least, Elias Morgan orchestrated Lenny Scott’s murder, recruiting Anthony Cleary to assist him in doing so.
‘That alone would make him guilty of murder on count one.
‘Moreover, the prosecution say, when you’ve examined the fine detail of the evidence, you will be sure not only that Elias Morgan is guilty of murder by organising the killing of Lenny Scott, you will be sure that it was he who pulled the trigger himself.
‘For his part, Anthony Cleary, the second defendant, played a supporting role. Acting on instructions, he delivered the van, containing the electric motorbike used by the gunman, to a housing estate close to the gym.
‘Moreover, he knew that he was delivering the van and bike so that they could be used by a gunman who intended to kill Lenny Scott, or at least to cause him really serious harm.’
Mr Leach told the jury: ‘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 of Morgan, 35, and Cleary, 29, continues.
