TWO men who helped organise the “deliberate, ruthless and cowardly execution” of Michael “Mikey” Wright have been put behind bars for a minimum of 53 years.

Mark Richardson, 25, and Paul Hollands, 23, were jailed for life for their part in the shooting of the father-of-three, who had connections with Liverpool’s criminal underworld.

Mr Wright, 34, of Waterloo Dock, Liverpool city centre, was in his car outside the KFC restaurant at the Stonedale Retail Park when he was gunned down from point-blank range.

The security firm boss was pronounced dead in hospital several hours later.

Two men – mastermind David Hibbs-Turner, of Sherwood’s Lane, Fazakerley, and gunman or gunman’s assistant Phillip Woolley – are already serving life for his murder after being convicted following a trial last May.

But jurors in that case were unable to reach verdicts on Hibbs-Turner’s next-door neighbour Richardson and Hollands, of Portlemouth Road, Croxteth, who were found guilty following a re-trial in January.

Mr Justice King yesterday ordered Richardson to serve a minimum of 28 years, while Hollands will be behind bars for at least 25 years.

He said: “It was a deliberate, ruthless and cowardly execution.”

The High Court judge said he accepted Hibbs-Turner had “pulled the strings” of the murder.

But he told the pair: “You both knew the deadly purpose in which you engaged, without your participation this murder could not have been carried out where and when it was.”

The pair smirked and smiled in the dock as they were caged.

Afterwards, Richardson’s brother, Tony, shouted across the court to Mr Wright’s daughter: “As least I’ll see my brother again, you'll never see your father again.”