By Gangsters Inc. Editors
The Woodchurch gang was a scourge. Its members dealt drugs and violence to anyone asking for it. They enforced their violent reputation with bullets. In the winter of 2022, two murders sent shockwaves through England: the execution-style killing of a grandmother on her own doorstep, and the Christmas Eve shooting of an innocent woman caught in the crossfire of a gang war.
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The first killing came in the early hours of the night of October 30, 2022, in the English town of Moreton. At just after 1am, 53-year-old Jacqueline Rutter opened the front door of her home on Meadowbrook Road. She was a grandmother of five. A woman worn down by years of addiction and family chaos, but not a gangster, not a dealer, not a threat. Standing outside was a masked man holding a self-loading handgun. He fired, at point-blank range, into her chest.
Emergency services were called, but it was already too late. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The gunman was James Byrne, just 21 years old at the time, a rising enforcer within the Woodchurch gang. He returned to the getaway car, a black Vauxhall Insignia, which was driven away by Barrie Glynn.
Not far from the scene, the vehicle was set alight in an attempt to erase evidence. The arson was carried out with assistance from Simon Allen, who had been waiting nearby with a silver Ford and a Yamaha motorbike. After the car burned, the men scattered, three fleeing in the Ford, one disappearing on the bike. David Harrison later helped transport the group and assisted in the clean-up operation.
The Woodchurch gang was already known to Merseyside Police as one of the most dangerous in the region. Jacqueline Rutter was not just simply a target. She was the message.
JJ Line: An entire drug operation on one cell phone
Two days earlier, Byrne’s drug operation, known on the street as the “JJ Line,” had been hit. Jacqueline’s sons, Peter and Steven Rutter, both heavy drug users with a reputation for robbing dealers, stole cash and, more critically, a phone used to run the JJ Line. Inside it was a customer list for drugs: contacts, numbers, profit.
The phone, in essence, was an entire drug operation. This was more than simple theft, it was a takeover.
The Woodchurch gang’s response was swift and brutal. Byrne armed himself, masked up, and went to the Rutter home. Prosecutors later described the killing as pure retaliation. No warning. No confrontation. Just a knock at the door and a single shot.
At the time, Woodchurch was already on police radar as an exceptionally violent crime gang. While their drug operation stretched beyond Wirral, in North West England, reaching into Wales and as far as Exeter, their real notoriety came from their willingness to use guns. Members and associates used encrypted EncroChat phones, discussed firearms deals, and treated shootings as routine business tools rather than last resorts.
But Jacqueline Rutter’s murder was not an isolated incident, it was part of an escalating war.
Gang warfare
Throughout 2022, the Woodchurch gang had been locked in a bloody feud with rivals from the Beechwood estate. Tit-for-tat violence escalated into open warfare. Gunmen moved on electric bikes. Shots were fired in residential streets. Victims were young.
Before Byrne was even charged with Jacqueline Rutter’s murder, he and his twin brother Curtis had already been convicted of attempted murder. In an earlier incident, the twins were part of a group that cornered a 17-year-old boy at a bus stop on Fender Way. Six shots were fired. The teenager was hit in the leg but survived. It was another example of the gang’s recklessness and their belief that everyone was fair game anywhere.
Then came Christmas Eve.
On 24 December 2022, outside a pub in Wallasey, Connor Chapman, another Woodchurch drug dealer, opened fire with a sub-machine gun. His intended targets were two men linked to the Beechwood gang. He missed them. Instead, 26-year-old Elle Edwards was struck and killed. She had nothing to do with drugs, gangs, or the feud. She was simply standing nearby.
The killing of Elle Edwards was chaos; spray-and-pray violence in a crowded public place on one of the busiest nights of the year. It confirmed what police already knew: the Woodchurch-Beechwood feud was out of control.
Curtis Byrne himself had been shot in the leg weeks earlier, on Orrets Meadow Road, another flashpoint in the conflict. By then, the cycle of retaliation was fully entrenched. Every shooting justified the next.
It was typical gang warfare.
The arrests that followed finally slowed the bloodshed. James Byrne was charged with Jacqueline Rutter’s murder. Connor Chapman was arrested for the killing of Elle Edwards. Others linked to both gangs were rounded up. Gun crime in Wirral dropped sharply once the core players were off the streets.
Following a trial lasting more than three months, four men were convicted over Jacqueline Rutter’s murder. 24-year-old James Byrne, 55-year-old Simon Allen, and 59-year-old David Harrison were found guilty of murder, arson, and firearms offences. 47-year-old Barrie Glynn was convicted of manslaughter, firearms offences, and arson.
Sentences handed down on January 29, 2026, reflected the gravity of the crime. Byrne received life imprisonment with a minimum term of 40 years. Allen was sentenced to 28 years for murder, alongside additional time for firearms and arson offences. Harrison was jailed for 26 years. Glynn was sentenced to 30 years, required to serve at least two-thirds before being eligible for release.
The Woodchurch gang’s reign of violence ended not with street dominance and glory, but with life sentences. And perhaps shame. Their victims were not tough, larger-than-life villains, but women going about their day. Their murders will not add to any street credibility. They won’t behind prison walls either.
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