Officers 'economical with truth'

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A detective has accused senior police officers of being "economical with the truth" over their knowledge of revenge attacks on a murderer's relatives.

John and Joan Stirland were killed at their Lincolnshire home in August 2004 after Mrs Stirland's son shot a friend of Nottingham crime boss Colin Gunn.

Gunn has since been jailed for 35 years for conspiracy to murder the couple.

The inquest jury at Lincoln Crown Court has been asked to consider if police failed to properly protect the couple.

Coroner Karon Monaghan QC said: "We have been told that certain senior officers have claimed they had no knowledge of the Stirlands by name until after their deaths."

Officer I, who left Nottinghamshire Police in 2004, said: "Some people have been economical with the truth."

'Third-hand information'

The Stirlands fled to Trusthorpe on the Lincolnshire coast from Nottingham after the couple's son Michael O'Brien killed Marvyn Bradshaw, 22, outside a pub in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, in 2003.

Officer I admitted that he received intelligence about a "contract being put out" after the murder of Bradshaw.

He said: "In that context I understood the phrase 'contract' meant that they intended to put the frighteners on.

"It was third-hand information. The information was not graded as priority. It was also the wrong intelligence in there.

"It talks about a contract on Jamie Gunn who was a member of the Gunn family. The intelligence didn't make sense."

Colin Gunn, 40, of Nottingham, was jailed in 2006 following his conviction for conspiracy to murder the Stirlands.

Co-defendants John Russell, 29, and Michael McNee, 22, were jailed for 30 and 25 years respectively, in 2006.

O'Brien, is being allowed to watch the proceedings in jail, where he is serving a life sentence for the murder of Marvyn Bradshaw.

The inquest continues.