Man jailed for life for murder of Michael Blake in Bolton.

Nathan Daniels shot Michael in the back of a van in Westhoughton.

Nathan Daniels
Published 7th Jun 2017

A man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of shooting a young dad in the back of a van in Bolton.

Nathan Daniels (pictured) from Stockport will serve a minimum of 30 years for Michael Blake's murder.

Blake opened the door to his killer on 3rd November 2016. He told told his partner he wouldn't be long but twenty minutes later she was disturbed by a frantic knock at the door and a man shouting for an ambulance.

As she went outside, she found Michael unresponsive, covered in blood and lying in the road.

Emergency services attended what they initially thought was a road traffic collision. He was taken to hospital, where it emerged he had a gunshot wound to his leg and the back of his head. He died from his injuries the next morning.

The investigation soon established that Michael had been shot while in a white Ford Transit van, which CCTV showed travelling towards his house just prior to the knock on his door and travelling away from his house almost 20 minutes later.

Telephone analysis linked four people to the murder, who have all been jailed after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing.

Nathan Quigley from Hulme and Joe Wilson from Stockport have both been jailed for 7 years for manslaughter.

Brendon Leo Fallon from Gorton has been jailed for 21 months for assisting an offender.

John Edwards from Reddish has been sentenced to 21 months suspended for 2 years for assisting an offender.

Detective Inspector John Mulvihill of GMP's Bolton Borough, said: "This was a brutal killing executed by Nathan Daniels who was in dispute with Michael and thus recruited his henchmen Quigley and Wilson.

"As if this wasn't enough, he armed himself with a loaded handgun and travelled with his allies from Manchester to Bolton, where they plotted to take Michael from his home.

"Michael willingly got into the van, oblivious to the fact that Daniels was armed with a gun. He was driven to a nearby secluded location where Daniels, in a fit of rage, shot Michael to the leg and then the head, before mercilessly dumping his lifeless body in the road for his loved ones to find.

"Within minutes of the shooting, Daniels and Wilson were tapping into their links in the criminal underworld and employed Fallon and Edwards to hide, clean and eventually dispose of the crime scene; the white Ford Transit van.

"This was a fast moving and complex investigation with dedicated officers who pulled together evidence from various sources and trawled through extensive CCTV footage as well as painstakingly analysing telephone records to bring this investigation to a successful conclusion.

"The traumatic events of his murder are something Michael's family and friends may never recover from but I hope today's sentencing provides them with some closure, knowing those who played a part in his death have been brought to justice."