Christopher Horrox

Christopher Horrox was shot in the head whilst out helping to put up fly-posters in Bombay Street, Manchester on 4 May 1994.

A 32-year-old man was tried for his murder but acquitted.

Christopher Horrox had been helping a 46-year-old man that ran a fly-posting business across Manchester city centre. It was heard that the man had been running his business for about twelve years and that he had a virtual monopoly. They had been out on a 'rush job', fly-posting posters for the Hugh Grant film Four Weddings and a Funeral that was due to be released the following week.

It was heard that Christopher Horrox had been helping the man fly-posting late at night in Manchester city centre when they were attacked. Christopher Horrox died but his boss, who was shot four times, survived.

The fly-posting boss said after recovering that it had been his partner that shot him and the partner was tried for the attack and the murder of Christopher Horrox. However, the case collapsed after new evidence came to light.

At the trial, the fly-posting boss said that neither he nor his partner liked each other but admitted that there had been no row or any obvious reason for his partner to try to murder him and his helper, Christopher Horrox. The fly-posting boss said that he met his partner twice whilst they were out working. He said that the first time was at about 11pm about a mile from the city centre when the business partner had asked him 'what's happening?' and that that the second was when they were working at the junction of Sackville Street and Bombay Street. He said that when his business partner returned that he laughingly joked with him, 'Are you following me?'. However, he said that the partner then raised a gun and shot him and that when he asked 'Why?', his business partner replied, 'You know why'.

The fly-posting boss said, 'Then he shot me again, I think the second went into my shoulder and into my neck. I pretended it had killed me. I lay flat on the floor and thought, 'Christ, just stop.' I felt two more bullets hit me, one in my back and one in my shoulder. I didn't flinch. I thought, 'Just keep still and he will think you are dead,' so I kept still.' He said that he then heard Christopher Horrox say something like, 'That's a bit drastic' and that he then heard another shot and heard Christopher Horrox fall to the ground.

The fly-posting boss said, 'It was a surreal experience, as though my brain was working very fast but everything else was in slow motion'.

After being shot, people gathered around the fly-posting boss, who was said to have said, in the belief that he was dying, that it was his business partner that had shot him.

However, at the trial, the fly-posting boss agreed that it was possible that rival fly-posters might also have had a motive for murdering him as he had been a dominant fly-poster in the area for twelve years.

It was also heard at the trial that the fly-posting boss had met with rivals in a McDonald's restaurant in Manchester the year earlier, 1993, to try to resolve their issues and that there had recently been an attack carried out on one of his vans with a baseball bat and that there had also been an arson attack.

However, the fly-posting boss's business partner said that he had been nowhere near the scene of the attack at the time, saying that he had been at a barbecue in Halebarns, Cheshire that afternoon until about 9.30pm after which he had gone to a pub with his brother and some other people and had then spent the night at his girlfriend’s flat. He said that he knew nothing about the murder until the following day when he received a call from a man with a local accent who told him that he was 'a dead man'. He said that he was being set up for the murder.

It was further heard that the fly-poster boss was heard to have said four days before the murder to an acquaintance that he had a consignment of guns coming that weekend. The acquaintance also said that the fly-poster boss had also told him in early January 1994 that he and Christopher Horrox were going to drive down to London to pick up some guns and bring them back to Manchester.

However, the fly-poster boss denied that he was involved in the firearms or drugs trades.

However, the trial was halted when the new evidence came to light.

Christopher Horrox had been a Warwick University graduate.