Two men have been convicted of murdering Ryan Kirkpatrick in what has been described as an “execution”-style Carlisle killing.
Kane Hull and Liam Porter came together to form “team murder” and acted jointly in a plan to brutally stab 24-year-old Mr Kirkpatrick at Carlyle’s Court on Saturday, 18th September last year, the city’s crown court heard.
Hull, 29 and Porter, 33, spent that afternoon together at the Royal Scot pub in Morton before travelling in a Volvo S40 to Carlyle’s Court, where an initial incident occurred at around 8-30pm. Porter was seen entering the shopping complex first on CCTV footage which then captured Hull entering a short time later before attempting to glass Mr Kirkpatrick amid a background of “bad blood” between the pair. Hull, a jury heard, had been locked up in 2018 for an affray and offensive weapon possession after Mr Kirkpatrick was chased into a Carlisle betting shop and attacked.
As Hull and Porter left Carlyle’s Court after the first incident, a passer-by heard a male say: “That f***ing b***ard got me locked up last time.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hull and Porter returned — masked and having changed some of their dark sports clothing in a bid to disguise themselves. Mr Kirkpatrick, while on his phone, was attacked by Hull without warning and stabbed three times, Hull lifting his hood, said the prosecution, in a chilling and deliberate gesture to reveal himself to the victim.
As an eagle-eyed off-duty nurse passed Carlyle’s Court, she heard a commotion, saw two men leaving and logged the time and registration number — with only one digit wrong — of the Volvo used by the killers in the notes section of her phone.
Another woman, PCs and medical professionals had battled to save Mr Kirkpatrick but he was pronounced dead at 9-22pm.
By that time, CCTV in the Drumburgh area north-west of Carlisle showed the Volvo used by Hull and Porter on fire.
At 9-33pm, phone call logs showed Hull making contact with a Newcastle-based solicitor’s office, and there would be further similar contact in the coming hours.
Thereafter, Hull and Porter were helped by friends as they went on the run, changing phone numbers, checking into new addresses using fake names — including a hotel at Alston where they stayed overnight — and taking delivery of stolen cars on false plates.
Just after midnight, a witness saw burning items being thrown from the window of a pick-up type vehicle in the Smithfield area.
CCTV sightings captured the killers in Hawick and Langholm, and they travelled to Northern Ireland by ferry and then to Southern Ireland. Ten days after the murder, Hull and Porter were arrested by Irish police at a rural retreat at Carracastle, County Mayo, where Hull was found hiding in a loft.
A shopping list scribbled on the back of a microwave oven manual featured, among other items, “hair dye, glasses, hat/wig, mask, munchies (Red Bull)”.
They were extradited, transported back to England and brought to justice after a painstaking Cumbria police investigation which saw damning CCTV images, phone and cell site data and other key evidence put before the jury.
Opening the case against Hull and Porter, prosecutor Tim Evans had said the killing “was at the hand of Hull” and that Porter was there “as a party to, supporting the plan to stab Mr Kirkpatrick”. “They were, in other words, in it together,” Mr Evans told jurors, calling them “team murder” with their own criminal kit. Incident two, said the prosecutor, “was nearer to an execution than a fight because Ryan Kirkpatrick had not a chance to fight back”.
The court heard evidence of another previous incident involving Mr Kirkpatrick in which he was said to have slapped the on-off partner of Hull’s brother while drunk. In a message exchange between Mr Kirkpatrick and that woman, he had hinted at “constant bother with them” that was “not worth my life”.
Less than three months before his death, another message from Mr Kirkpatrick to the woman stated: “End of the day I get stabbed up a hope you feel bad whatever a done or said that night wasn’t meant.”
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for seven hours before finding Hull, latterly of Bower Street, and Porter, of Fulmar Place, both Carlisle, guilty of Mr Kirkpatrick’s murder with the verdicts announced this afternoon.
The pair are due to be sentenced by trial judge, the Honourable Mr Justice Linden, tomorrow morning, and face mandatory life prison sentences.
