A review of sensitive police intelligence has seen a planned coronial hearing pushed back

17:08, 30 Jan 2026Updated 18:27, 30 Jan 2026

Paul Massey(Image: MEN Media)

The loved ones of Salford ‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey said they were ‘frustrated’ as an inquest into his death was delayed again more than a decade after he was gunned down in the street.

But they welcomed a coroner-ordered review of sensitive police intelligence relating to the case, saying they hope it will finally address concerns they have about his brutal murder.

Massey was shot dead with an Uzi sub-machine gun on the doorstep of his home in Clifton in July 2015. His death at the age of 55 came at the height of a vicious war between a Salford gang known as the A-Team – whose members considered Massey a mentor and elder – and a rival faction, the Anti A-Team.

Senior coroner Timothy Brennand ruled in August last year that a full inquest should be held. It was a major victory for Massey’s family following a 10-year battle for a comprehensive hearing.

Massey with his daughter Kelly Massey(Image: Kelly Massey)

The inquest will explore Greater Manchester Police’s alleged failure to protect him in the months leading up to his murder and the delivery of a ‘Threat to Life’ warning prior to the killing, Mr Brennand previously outlined.

It was listed to begin on March 23 this year. In September, GMP’s barrister Jonathan Dixey said there was a ‘substantial body of material’, including over 200 pieces of intelligence relating to the period from March to June 2015 alone, some of which related to ‘the wider gang feud’.

Mr Brennand said at the time a specially-vetted barrister would be appointed as counsel for the inquest who could review the material, described by GMP as ‘security sensitive’, and help the coroner decide which parts were relevant and needed to be disclosed to interested persons in the hearing.

A pre-inquest review hearing at Bolton Coroners’ Court on Friday (January 30), was told the securing of the required ‘high-level clearance’ for the barrister had taken much longer than anticipated.

That meant the review had not yet been carried out and that she was no longer available to continue in the case, with a replacement having now been appointed.

Forensics at the scene in Clifton following his murder in July 2015(Image: PA)

Anna Morris KC, representing the family, said: “I must express the families frustration that we are without any tangible progress being made in relation to disclosure and disclosure review.”

She said the newly appointed counsel to the inquest was ‘likely to have his own lines of enquiry’ after viewing the material and that family believed it should ‘take as long as he feels it needs’.

“Mr Massey’s family are putting their trust in this process and it needs to be done independently, thoroughly and properly,” Ms Morris said.

Mr Brennand said he believed the inquest needed to look at ‘the intelligence which gave rise the issuing of the Threat to Life (TTL) notice’ in enough detail that it ‘sufficiently allows an understanding of the nature of it and thereafter the response’.

Jonathan Dixey, representing GMP, said: “We will do whatever we can to facilitate access to the material. Depending on diaries, it may be we take material to him in London or it might be he comes northwards.”

The inquest is to examine the circumstances surrounding the issuing of a Threat to Life (TTL) notice to Massey before his murder(Image: PA)

Mr Brennand said it was ‘with a heavy heart’ and ‘not without a measure of hesitance’ that he had decided the final hearing could not go ahead as planned.

He said he had the ‘full and genuine intention’ to proceed in March, but that ‘the complexities were not fully understood’ when the date was fixed. The delay, he added, ‘realistically could not have been avoided’.

He told Mr Massey’s family they were ‘at the heart of the process’, but said he did not want to ‘repeat the mistake in the sense of fixing a date without knowing exactly what we are dealing with in terms of the evidence’.

A pre-inquest review hearing is due to take place on what would have been the first two days of the final inquest – March 23 and 24.

Mr Brennand said when the evidential picture was clearer, which he said he hoped would be by that date, he would fix ‘the earliest convenient date ‘or the family and the court.

Speaking outside court following the hearing, Massey’s daughter Kelly told the Manchester Evening News: “I’m just happy the case is being properly looked at and the sensitive materials are being viewed professionally and correctly.

“I’ve always been frustrated when it comes to the inquest, and I am. But everything is time consuming. I’m working around the clock, and my clock has got to 11 years… of fighting.

“We have no other choice than to keep going. Because if I gave up on my dad, who would fight for him then? And that’s one thing I could never live with.”

She said she was confident she and her loved ones will eventually get answers, adding: “I think the inquest will set me free.”

Massey received at least five Threat to Life (TTL) warnings from 2009 up until the weeks before he was killed, it has previously been disclosed. The final of those was delivered to his home on May 27, 2015, eight weeks before his death. It was posted through the letterbox.

Massey’s family say he would never have gone to a funfair with his grandkids two weeks later if he had known of the threat and that officers should have made efforts to deliver it to him in person.

A 2017 internal investigation by GMP cleared two officers who delivered the warning, the Manchester Evening News has previously reported.

The officers said nobody answered the door and Massey’s partner, when they informed her they had a threat to life warning for him, shouted from a window for them to post it through the letterbox ‘with the rest of them’. After his death, police found the document and Massey’s fingerprints on it.

When he granted the family’s request an inquest, Mr Brennand said there was ‘sufficient cause’ for a full hearing, as ‘alleged inconsistencies remain in relation to how the notice was served’.

He said the family’s concerns had been ‘articulated from an early stage with dignity, fortitude and gracious tenacity’ and that they had ‘no confidence’ in GMP to investigate them for themselves.