CCTV: Daniel Shovelton in Tesco after Mark Bradbury’s murder

Cheshire Police has released CCTV of Daniel Shovelton visiting Tesco Extra on Winwick Road shortly before midnight on August 1 2019.

The same evening, the 40-year-old had gone to Mark Bradbury’s home on Station Road South in Padgate and murdered his friend of 20 years.

Shovelton, of Saffron Close in Longbarn, spent nearly three hours in the area between 7pm and 9pm but claimed he had fallen asleep in his car after intending to visit the graveyard at Christ Church CE Church.

Mr Bradbury, who was also known to his friends as Henry or H, was subjected to a ‘sustained and violent assault’ in which he was strangled and suffered ‘blunt force injuries’ to the head.

Within hours, his attacker can be seen calmly strolling into Tesco and picking up a basket before buying items including six bottles of tonic water, four lemons and a 35cl bottle of Tesco brand whisky using cash he had taken from the murder scene.

Shovelton then went on what he described as his ‘magical mystery tour’, during which he is alleged to have disposed of evidence at locations including Chetham Court on Winwick Quay, the Bridgewater Canal in Grappenhall and the Woolston Grange industrial estate.

CCTV footage of the last known images of the 58-year-old victim at Bargain Booze in Orford have also been released by the force.

Mr Bradbury bought 12 bottles of Heineken and a packet of Lambert and Butler cigarettes from the Poplars Avenue store at around 6.30pm on the evening of his death.

But only 10 of the bottles were recovered, while the cigarette pack was a key piece of evidence for the prosecution after a matching one was discovered in Shovelton’s bedroom.