An innocent man who was blasted with a shotgun by a total stranger has spoken of how he is still undergoing surgeries 18 months later. David Forbes had been staying at his partner’s Croxteth home on February 28 2025 when he offered to go to the chip shop to pick up some tea for his 15 year-old stepson.
David, 42, who is from Wallasey, left the terraced house on Cubert Road on the family errand when suddenly he found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Standing in front of him was a man dressed in black, mumbling under his breath and clutching the lethal weapon which was trained on David.
The dad of two recalled the moment he came so close to death. Speaking to the ECHO this week, David said: “I’ve crossed over the road, he’s crossed over as well. I thought it was weird, all in black. I was a bit wary of him, and then I thought: ‘he’s coming towards me, he’s getting closer’.
“And he mumbled something, stopped, pointed the gun down and walked back. I think he realised I’m not the guy, and because everything happened so quick I’ve carried on walking. I think he panicked and thought: ‘I’m going to have to shoot’.”
An x-ray of David Forbes’ leg showing the pellets left embedded in him by Daniel Lawless’ attack.
The shotgun went off with an ear-splitting boom and David dropped to the floor with hundreds of shotgun pellets embedded in his legs. His attacker, having casually ruined David’s life and, as it would turn out his own, fled immediately.
Bloodied and in terrible pain David began dragging himself back across the street screaming for help. He crawled into the house where his partner’s 22-year-old son was stood, open mouthed as David dragged his mangled legs behind him.
David is a joker by nature, so when he fell through the front door claiming to have been shot, his stepson thought it was a joke. That was until he saw his blood-soaked jeans. Quickly, David’s jeans were cut open and his 31-year-old stepdaughter, a registered doctor in her native Sudan, tried to stem the bleeding caused by the fragmented pellet in his lower legs.
David Forbes’ scars on his legs(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Armed police soon arrived and searched the property before paramedics took David to hospital where he underwent an 11 hour operation to save his legs.
He said: “When I woke up, the first thing I said was: ‘Am I going to walk again? Have I lost my legs?’ Because I couldn’t lift my leg, I couldn’t feel my legs.”
David spent two weeks in hospital, having had major surgery on both his lower legs, where shrapnel still remains. After having reconstructive surgery on his legs, medics left the wounds open for two days before stapling them shut.
He was released walking with the aid of crutches, but remains optimistic about his recovery. His jovial personality came out on the drive home as he played ‘Shotgun’ by George Ezra.
But within weeks of being released David was readmitted when he noticed swelling on his left leg. The wounds there were seeping and the limb didn’t seem to be getting any better. When the doctor saw his leg, he squeezed the calf and “blood shot across the wound”.
David endured a further surgery for blood clots and spent another four week in hospital. To-date, David has had upwards of 200 staples in his leg and in total, has spent nearly a whole a day under the surgeon’s knife.
David still faces a long road of recovery following the shooting in February last year(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Sat in his living room this week, with his partner and members of his family, who asked not to be named, David showed his scars to the ECHO to expose the life-changing consequences of gun crime.
Sixteen months have passed since the shooting, and well over a year since his numerous surgeries, but he is still coping with the fallout.
Sitting on a grey sofa in the rear living room, with his partner and two of her children, he told The ECHO: “I was struggling to just be able to go to the shop and carry a bag and stuff, you know? When I first came out of hospital, on the crutches for so long and then I have a walking aid that goes into your laces on your boot, with a strap over the top to hold my foot up.
“I was slipping and falling over in the shower, it was just things like that. There is the PTSD. Like on Bonfire Night, fireworks going off, I was waking up with panic attacks.”
David has had 200 staples in him holding his surgical wounds closed
The mental toll of the shooting has had its effect on the family too. His partner’s now 16 year-old son is uncomfortable having the front door open, while other members of the family remain fearful something like this could happen again.
David explained how his partner and her family had only moved into the house a year previously, and later found out, in what David sees as an amusing twist of fate, that the man who shot him, Daniel Lawless, had lived in their home years previously.
He added: “I don’t let anybody go to the shop now, especially when it’s dark, on their own at least. We go in twos.”
But they remain, supported by their neighbours and the community. David said: “Neighbours have all been supportive and everybody knows I am innocent, and now they sort of know what it was, it wasn’t a targeted attack.”
Daniel Lawless, 23, also known as Daniel Williams, was jailed for 18 and a half years
David says he has had spells of being angry, both with his attacker and with the situation he finds himself in. He has spent his life working as a tradesman and on building sites, and had not long started a new job running construction sites when he was shot. Because he was on probation at the time of the shooting he lost his job.
Earlier this month, Daniel Lawless was sentenced for the horror attack. Liverpool Crown Court was shown CCTV footage which showed Lawless leaving an address on Petherick Road on foot shortly after 10pm and continuing into the car park of the Lobster pub, where he was seen to produce the shotgun from a carrier bag and show the weapon to three males standing outside.
Having then walked away in order to carry out the shooting, he subsequently ran from the scene of the assault, briefly returned again and left once more, at which stage he was observed “gesturing towards the males in the car park”.
David had his wounds left open for two days so they could heal before medics closed them over
Arriving back on Petherick Road, Lawless was shown entering a parked car around 20 minutes later in possession of a backpack and “disappearing”. He returned in a taxi at around 7.15am the following day wearing a dressing gown and carrying a black rucksack. The gun was never recovered by police.
Lawless admitted wounding with intent and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, with a previous charge of attempted murder being ordered to lie on the file. Appearing via video link to HMP Liverpool he appeared to wipe his eyes with his blue Montirex t-shirt before he was jailed for 18-and-a-half years and handed an additional four years on licence.
Lawless showed what sort of person he is when, in July 2025, he poured boiling sugar water over his cell mate while he was sleeping, leaving his skin melting off. Lawless later bragged ‘I’ve done him’.
Meanwhile David’s recovery continues. He is due in for more surgery, this time on his tendons and muscles, in the hopes it will improve mobility and movement in his foot. Surgeons are only able to perform the operation once, and recovery will take more than a year – with no guarantee it will work.