Elias Morgan is accused of shooting Mr Scott in an “act of retaliation”, supported by co-defendant Anthony Cleary
20:35, 26 Jun 2025Updated 21:27, 26 Jun 2025
Lenny Scott was 33 when he was fatally shot outside a gym in Skelmersdale(Image: Lancashire Constabulary / family handout )
A prison officer shot dead said, ‘I’ve made it worse…he runs the wing” after he reported a threat inside HMP Altcourse, his partner said. 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 on February 8, 2024.
Alleged gunman Elias Morgan is accused of shooting dad-of-three Mr Scott in an “act of retaliation” after Mr Scott exposed an illicit relationship involving him and a female officer at HMP Altcourse, the court heard. 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.
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 this afternoon, Thursday, from Lucy Griffiths, a former partner of Mr Scott and mum to his twin sons. She told the court he was “scared” after he received a threat in March 2020 and had told her an inmate, whose name she did not know, had said “something about them doing something to the house, and he was going to bide his time”.
Ms Griffiths told the detective in the pre-recorded interview played to the court: “He said he was coming home. I remember being terrified. He said he didn’t want to scare me. He said ‘I feel like he has it in for me’. He said something about a phone. He found something in the cell… I think (the inmate) said something along the lines of I’m going to get you and I’ll bide my time.
“I remember he was scared. I was asking things, and he was saying, ‘Just leave it; I don’t want to talk about it’. I’m just absolutely panicking.” Ms Griffiths said Mr Scott went back to work and the inmate was moved, but she couldn’t remember if it was another prison of a different wing.
She said: “He felt a little bit better but said ‘I’ve made it worse because he won’t like that, he runs the wing’. I think it died down a bit after that but I know he hated it then. That really scared him with the boys.”
The court had earlier heard from Mr Scott’s mum Paula, who said the threat changed her son’s opinion of the Prison Service. She said: “He was second guessing things, he was making a joke about things but it wasn’t. It changed things for him from then. 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 everyday and tried his best.”
Lenny Scott was fatally injured when he was shot on February 8 2024 (Image: Lancashire Constabulary)
Mr Scott’s family said he would speak to them about “corruption” in the prison and mentioned a “female officer called Sarah”. 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.
The court also heard Mr Scott was refusing to appear as a witness at court “in relation to the threat and the corrupt prison officer” because he didn’t want to put his family in “jeopardy”. 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.
When she learnt about the manner of her son’s death, she said “straight away that prison came to light”. 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”.
Lenny Scott was fatally injured when he was shot on February 8 2024 (Image: Lancashire Constabulary)
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 of 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 of Highgate Street, Edge Hill and Cleary, 29, of Smithdown Lane, continues.