3:15pm Wednesday 23rd May 2012
By Barbara Jordan
“YOU will hear him being murdered.”
That was the chilling message a murder trial jury at Chester Crown Court was given today as the final hours of a Widnes man's life was pieced together.
Dad-of-three Wayne Basnett, aged 30, of Mayfield Avenue, was shot in the head and left dying in the snow in Pepper Street, Hale Village, shortly after midnight on December 22.
The shooting happened minutes after he had installed a secret security camera outside the family home in Carriage Close of Michael Eves, the man accused of his death.
Mr Unsworth told the jury of seven women and five men, “You will hear him being murdered.
“It is a sad irony that the camera set up by Wayne Basnett actually captured the audio recording of his death.
“Hale was asleep. The silence is shattered by three shots. One of those shots caused a bullet to penetrate his skull.
“It was a cold blooded ruthless execution. He was shot through the head at close range.
“There is compelling evidence that the defendant was there. Evidence can’t be sure he pulled the trigger, but he was there and he was party to the murder.”
Eves, aged 24, of Edenhall Drive, Halewood, Liverpool, is also accused of assaulting Mr Basnett’s girlfriend, Kimberley McMahon, the mother of one of his children.
Mr Unsworth said Eves punched her in the face in at The Grenadier pub in Halewood on December 4, 18 days before the murder.
Mr Unsworth said: “Eves told her: ‘Tell your rat of a fella, I’m going to kill him’.”
Eves fled the murder scene and lived abroad for most of 2011.
Detectives traced his movements across Europe and North America.
Eves denies the murder and assault.
The trial continues.
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