Overview

• Liverpool Crown Court sentenced Joshua Hayes, 34, to 20 years on October 10 for firearms and Class A drug conspiracies.
• Eleven co-defendants pleaded guilty to related offences and received custodial terms following the police investigation.
• Officers had bugged Hayes’s Mercedes in 2024, capturing a discussion about hiring a plasterer to hide guns “proper safe” in a hole in the wall.
• Police later recovered three firearms—two Skorpion machine pistols and a handgun—with ammunition behind a constructed false wall, wrapped in a tea towel.
• Forensic evidence linked gang members’ DNA to the weapons, and detectives said one Skorpion had been used to kill in Merseyside while warning rivals might try to fill the void.