A MAJOR police investigation into terrifying firearms incidents on Merseyside ended with 22 people - including a ring leader from Birkenhead - being jailed for a total of 311 years.

The arrest of the gangsters ended the "climate of fear" that pervaded Speke housing estates resulting from an increasingly violent "turf war" between organised drug dealing crime gangs in the area.

The 21 men and one woman, who were sentenced in a two day hearing concluding this afternoon, (Fri) were involved in two separate organised gangs and were brought to justice following Operation Bombay, a 14-month long investigation ending in May last year run by Merseyside police.

A total of ten potentially lethal working firearms, including sawn-off shotguns, were recovered by officers, three of them loaded and the others with available ammunition. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were found and more than £61,000 cash.

Class A drugs with a street value of £163,000 were also recovered but Liverpool Crown Court heard that there had been 76 drug running trips to North Wales and further afield and Ian Unsworth, QC, prosecuting, described it as a "million pound plus operation."

Two pipe bombs, which were "good to go", were found at Jaxson Motors, garage premises in Wheatland Lane, Wallasey, which was a front for one of the gangs and where heroin and cocaine were mixed on an "industrial scale" and weapons and ammunition stored.

Judge Denis Watson, QC, who presided over four trials involved in the case, said that if the fuses of the pipe bombs had been ignited "the effect would have been devastating."

Christoper Wallace, who ran the garage, was the head of one of the two organised gangs, and he has been sentenced to life with a minimum term 31 years.

Wallace, 35, from Woodchurch, had been convicted of drugs and firearms conspiracies and possessing explosives with intent to endanger life.

After three guns and ammunition were discovered at his garage he fled to Spain but his illegal business continued from the premises, now called Sons Motors, run by 32-year-old Anthony Tierney, of Beechwood Gardens, Aigburth, who was jailed for 20 years three months.

The other gang was run by Jake and Callum Burrows, to whom Wallace supplied firearms and drugs.

Callum, 22, of Ann Street West, Widnes was jailed for 20 years and and his 24-year-old brother, of Brandon, Widnes, received 25 and a half years.

The brothers, who also had their own arsenal of guns, had been found guilty of drugs and firearms conspiracies.

The only woman in the case, Joanne Ritchie, who was a courier for Wallace delivering drugs in Liverpool, North Wales and Plymouth and collecting payment made more than 20 trips in eight months.

Judge Watson said that when intercepted by police on November 15, 2017, Ritchie, whose partner Kevin Morgan, 58, was jailed for 16 years for his role in the plots, was found to have two kilos of import quality heroin in her handbag.

it was after her arrest that police raided Jaxson Motors for the first time and found a gun and the pipe bombs.

Ritchie, 47, of Westdale Road, Wavertree, was jailed for nine years.

Mr Unsworth said that Morgan was related to Wallace and he used family members and trusted friends to assist him in his enterprise.

Wallace's 21-year-old step-son Dillon Walsh played a pivotal role in the gang's firearms activity while being in prison for drugs crime and he has a previous firearms conviction.

He was jailed for 14 years today.

Judge Watson said that three people had been injured after shots were fired into a house in Ramsbrook Close, Speke, and there was later a retaliatory attack at a house in Eastern Avenue, Speke.

Children had been ushered away minutes before the the judge described it as "a miracle" that none was hurt after a weapon was fired four times into the premises.

He pointed out that during the turf war many people in Speke "felt that gangs could operate with impunity" and the police operation had made "a real difference. There has been a dramatic reduction in crime and an improvement of life for residents of Speke now this criminal activity has been curtailed."

The court heard that through violence and intimidation vulnerable young people had been coerced into county lines drug running and drugs were also distributed to Shropshire and Plymouth.

The gangs buried drugs in woodland near Speke along with some of the firearms that were used to enforce drug dealing activities and they used houses on the estate as hubs for their drug dealing business.

A total of 31 premises were raided by police, mainly on Merseyside but also Widnes, Nottingham, Staffordshire and Plymouth.