Lucy Hargreaves was killed after three men burst into her home
17:05, 03 Aug 2025Updated 17:05, 03 Aug 2025
A new, never-shared-before picture of Lucy Hargreaves, released to the media on the 20th anniversary of her murder(Image: Hargreaves family / Merseyside Police)
A gang “ignored the cries of a toddler” after shooting a mum dead as she slept. Mum-of-three Lucy Hargreaves was just 22-years-old when she was murdered inside her family home In Lambourne Avenue, Walton, 20 years ago today.
This year, on July 7, Lucy should have been celebrating her 42nd birthday. Instead, her family was left marking yet another birthday without her. In the early hours of August 3, 2005, the young and ambitious 22-year-old mum was asleep on the sofa when three men burst into her home.
The thugs shot Lucy three times with a sawn-off shotgun before they doused her duvet in petrol and set the house alight. Lucy’s two-year-old daughter and the toddler’s dad were asleep upstairs and they were forced to escape through an upstairs window.
Twenty-one people have been arrested in connection with the long-running police probe over the years but no one has been convicted. The suspected gunman, Kevin Parle, remains on the run despite extensive efforts from investigators to return him to Merseyside to face charges for not just Lucy’s murder but the killing of a teenage boy in Dingle the year before.
Lucy’s family has now issued a never-shared-before image to the media depicting the “strong woman” at a local college. Her family also appealed for anyone with new information to come forward to support a new review into her murder by a specialist policing team.
The picture was taken at a college she attended at the site now occupied by Merseyside Police’s HQ in Everton. Lucy expressed her ambitions for the future with a note that accompanied the image on a wall. It read: “I’m really enjoying the course. I want to work with computers in the future. Also, the creche being next door is great for me as a single mother as my two (eldest) children go there while I am training.”
A new, never-shared-before picture of Lucy Hargreaves, released to the media on the 20th anniversary of her murder(Image: Hargreaves family / Merseyside Police)
Lucy’s family said despite two decades passing since her death they “miss her every single day”. They added: “The way we lost Lucy is not something families can ever truly come to terms with – it is still incredibly difficult and painful to think about. We are a private family who do not encourage publicity and we have always conducted ourselves with dignity.”
The family added: “We consider ourselves to be an ordinary local family with strong roots in the Walton, Norris Green, Croxteth and Dovecot areas of Liverpool. Lucy’s nanny Joyce was a strong mother of eight who had to cope with the loss of three granddaughters in her lifetime – including Lucy.
“Her nanny Betty, left a widow aged 35 with six children to bring up, was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to nursing as an auxiliary nurse in the Royal Liverpool Hospital. Betty was active in her church Queen of Martyrs in Croxteth and was a Eucharist Minister.
“They were two strong local women typical of their generation and Lucy, too, was a strong woman who could have achieved so much had she only been given the opportunity.”
Lucy Hargreaves with her three children
Merseyside Police launched a new review into Lucy’s murder two years ago with particular interest on the vehicles and stolen phone used in the attack. Lucy’s family said her neighbours and the local community were crucial in helping the force trace the vehicles involved but added new information has come to light over the past 20 years.
They said: “A number of people were contacted by males using a phone that was stolen along with a vehicle used in Lucy’s murder. A vehicle used in Lucy’s murder had been stolen a week before the incident, along with a mobile phone which was used shortly after the theft to contact a number of people.
“The people who received those calls, along with others, could have information which could be crucial in achieving justice for Lucy, her parents, sister, children and all her extended family and friends. We appeal directly to them to please come forward. Now is the time.”
Shortly after the incident, a gold Lexus car, registration NAD499, was found burned out on Richard Kelly Drive, Clubmoor. It is thought a number of males dumped the car before running in the direction of Normandale Road and detectives continue to appeal for anyone with any information on the car’s movements before the incident and anyone connected with the vehicle.
Howard Rubbery, head of Merseyside Police’s serious case review unit, said: “It is now 20 years since Lucy was taken from her family in the most brutal of circumstances. After carrying out the killing, the offenders ignored the cries of a toddler upstairs as they poured petrol around the house and set fire to it.
“Their callous and reckless actions could have claimed the lives of two more people that night, had they not escaped the flames by jumping from a window upstairs. We are as determined as ever to get justice for Lucy, whose death robbed her family of a loving mother and daughter.
“As with any unsolved murder, time is no barrier to our pursuit of justice for Lucy and we appeal to anyone with any information, no matter how small it may seem, to contact us.”
The murder scene in Lambourne Road after Lucy Hargreaves was killed(Image: Trinity Mirror)
Reports in the wake of the horrific incident detailed how it wasn’t believed Lucy was the intended target of the attack. Instead, accounts pointed towards Lucy’s partner, Gary Campbell, as the planned recipient of the hit after a gang blamed him for a hit-and-run which killed four-year-old Kevin Downes in Huyton in August 1993.
Speaking to the ECHO following his partner’s murder, he denied having been present in the vehicle which killed the boy, claiming to have left the car moments before the fatal crash. The driver, who was just 14 at the time, received a 12-month sentence causing a huge outcry at the time.
Kevin’s older brother Tony and another man, Kirk Bradley, went on trial for Lucy’s murder in 2007, but were acquitted midway through the case after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed. The pair later received life sentences for their roles in a violent gang war.
The suspected killer Parle is believed to have fled the country. The gangland hitman is also the main suspect in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Liam Kelly who was murdered on Grafton Street in Dingle in the early hours of June 19 2004.
A billboard featuring the face of Merseyside’s most wanted Kevin Parle was driven around Spain in a bid to track him down
Efforts to trace Parle have proved unsuccessful despite an international manhunt spearheaded by the National Crime Agency.
Lucy’s family added: “We greatly admire the determination and guts of the families of those who have more recently been killed as a result of gun crime here in Merseyside. The mums of both Ashley Dale and Olivia Pratt Korbel have led a real and powerful community challenge to men of violence.
“Ellis Cox was killed just a few hundred metres from the scene of Lucy’s horrific murder and his mum and aunt have proved to be two more strong women giving a clear message to those who have information to come forward to achieve justice for Ellis.
“We want others to listen to these strong women and find the strength to come forward with any information that could help achieve justice for Lucy and Ellis.”