A father who pressured his 14-year-old son to take the blame for a murder he committed has been jailed for at least 26 years.



Matthew Moseley, 50, shot dead Lee Holt, 32, before he handed the semi-automatic shotgun to his son, Thomas, and told him to falsely confess to the shooting.

Moseley stayed silent as the teenager was arrested and led away in handcuffs from their home near Accrington, Lancashire, last October.

The teenager later changed his account and told police that his father fired the shot.

Moseley, a keen clay pigeon shooter who lawfully kept 23 guns at his home, maintained his innocence but was found guilty of murder by a jury at Preston crown court last week. On Tuesday he was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 26 years.

The shooting on Moseley’s doorstep in Oswaldtwistle was the result of a dispute between Thomas and Holt’s partner’s 15-year-old son, the trial heard.

Holt and his partner, Kate Phelan, 34, were seen banging on the front windows and door of Moseley’s home to sort out the dispute as her son, Wesley Metcalfe, looked on.

Thomas told police he saw his father bend down by his gun cabinet, load a semi-automatic Beretta and shoot Holt from up to 10ft away as the front door opened.

Holt was taken to hospital but died hours later from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Moseley, a tree surgeon, maintained during the trial that it was his son who pulled the trigger despite being covertly recorded pressing Thomas to take the blame.



In a recording taken of the father and son as they were driven to court, Moseley was heard to say: “At the end of the day, Thomas, they have come down the drive. They were going to kill you ... it was just a freak accident. You did what you did.”

Asked during the trial what he was referring to, Moseley said: “He defended himself basically.” In the same recorded conversation, Moseley later says: “Come here, I will sort it. If I have to take the blame then they will let you out tonight.”

Asked what he meant by that, Moseley said: “He did not deserve to be there because he has put up with enough ... bullying. He defended himself. It was an accident.”

DCI Jill Johnston, of Lancashire police, said Moseley had shown no remorse for his actions and had allowed his own son “to go through the ordeal of being arrested and questioned by the police, for something which all along he knew he had done”.

She added: “If that wasn’t wicked enough, he then also pressurised the boy to take responsibility for a crime that he hadn’t committed and told the court during the trial that he was innocent and that the boy had fired the fatal shot.”

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Bryan told the defendant: “How any father could do that to their son is difficult enough to comprehend but what is truly incomprehensible is the cynical way in which you sought to manipulate, and pressurise, your son into accepting responsibility for the shooting and death of Lee Holt.”