Two notorious gangland associates were gunned down in a “stone cold murder” as part of a deadly feud between rival gangs, a court has heard.

Paul Massey, 55, from Salford, and his friend John Kinsella, 53, from Liverpool, were murdered three years apart in copycat killings, a jury was told.

Jurors were told that the pair were shot dead by Mark Fellows, 38, and Steven Boyle, 35, who both deny murder.

Fellows and Boyle, who also deny the attempted murder of Kinsella’s partner, Wendy Owen, were surrounded by six prison officers in the dock at Liverpool crown court amid tight security.

About 15 relatives of Massey and Kinsella sat in the public gallery, just yards away from the defendants, as the trial got under way on Monday.

Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told the jury that both of the victims had a “serious criminal history” and were “notorious” within the ganglands of Liverpool and Salford.

He said: “They were friends and associates. Moreover, each was well known, if not notorious, within the gangland of the north-west and both men undoubtedly had enemies. Their undoing has to do with events in the city of Salford, where serious violence broke out between two criminal gangs in 2015.”

Massey was shot dead by a gunman who laid in wait with an Uzi submachine gun outside his home in Clifton, Salford, on 26 July 2015.

Kinsella was murdered almost three years later, on 5 May 2018, while on his regular morning walk with Owen and their dogs near their home in St Helens, Merseyside.

The gunman, allegedly Fellows, cycled up behind the pair and shot Kinsella twice in the back with a handgun, the court heard.

He then turned the gun on Owen, who fled, before shooting Kinsella twice in the back of the head as he lay dying, jurors were told.

Greaney said there were “clear parallels” that suggested the same killers carried out both murders.

In particular, police investigating the Kinsella murder seized a Garmin Forerunner smartwatch belonging to Fellows, which showed that a few months before Massey’s murder it had travelled a route from Fellows’ home to the area where the killer lay in wait for his victim. Police allege that it showed Fellows was on a “reconnaissance run” for the planned gangland hit.

The trial continues.