'Police delay' over murdered pair

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Police delayed visiting a couple who reported a prowler outside their Lincolnshire "safe house" and were then found shot dead, an inquest has heard.

John and Joan Stirland were killed in a revenge attack in Trusthorpe in August 2004 after Mrs Stirland's son shot a friend of crime boss Colin Gunn.

The couple were moved there from their Nottingham home after being shot at.

A jury was told there was a delay of 80 minutes while Nottinghamshire Police officers tried to contact colleagues.

'Cold-blooded killing'

By the time Lincolnshire officers arrived at the bungalow in Trusthorpe the couple had been killed, the inquest heard.

A senior Nottinghamshire Police officer, known only as J, told the inquest: "With the benefit of hindsight things would have been done differently."

Colin Gunn was jailed for a total of 35 years

The officer said although intelligence had been received that Nottingham gang leader Colin Gunn, 40, had taken a contract out on the couple he did not think they would carry it out.

He said: "It was never at the forefront of our minds that they would carry out such an attack.

"I couldn't perceive at that time that those responsible would go out on a Sunday afternoon and commit such a cold-blooded killing.

"Not all the intelligence was correct."

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

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