Mikey Rainsford was sitting in the kitchen on April 7, 2020, when a masked gunman entered the back garden of his family home in Litherland, Merseysideand fired twice through the window.

Both bullets hit Mikey as he tried to run and he died in his father’s arms at just 20 years old.

“We were just on the stairs holding each other,” said his father, Michael Rainsford and. “The vow he made that he didn’t want to die – he was terrified.”

James Foy, a career criminal with links to a local gang known as the Linacre Young Guns, later admitted that he didn’t even know his victim, but was simply scouting Mikey’s property with the intention of getting revenge after someone threw bricks through his mother’s window.

He was found guilty of murder following a trial in 2021 and is now serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 28 years.

As the fourth Christmas without Mikey approaches, the pain felt by his family – his father, mother Joanne, brother Josh and sister Jessica – is still incredibly raw.

“We never got along. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” Mr Rainsford said. “I’m extremely careful where I am, what I’m doing, I have nightmares.

“You don’t move on from that kind of thing, it’s just that your head is always in a loop with it.

“You can never understand that someone would take another life so badly, so calmly. To take someone’s life for such a pathetic reason.”

The pain was compounded by the family’s belief that Mikey’s death could have been prevented but for alleged failures of forensic evidence at Merseyside Police.

Mr Rainsford believes Mikey’s killer should have already been behind bars at the time of the fatal shooting.

Five months earlier, in November 2019, Merseyside Police recovered a firearm, a Grand Power K100 semi-automatic pistol, originally from Slovakia, while arresting a drug dealer and a forensic report found DNA Foy’s.

However, it took 77 days before the first ‘hit’ of Foy’s DNA was returned by Cellmark, the private forensics service contracted by Merseyside Police, and detectives were not happy it was conclusive enough to lead to a criminal charge.

Police requested further DNA tests, which were returned in March 2020, but they felt the results still did not meet the evidentiary threshold to charge Foy and so he remained on the streets.

It was only after Mikey Rainsford was killed and Foy was arrested that detectives ordered a fourth DNA test and finally decided they could charge him with both the murder and possession of the gun.

The force said and has “identified some learning opportunities” for staff related to aspects of the investigation into Mikey’s death. But for the Rainsfords, questions remain – including why it took so long to obtain the DNA evidence.

“(Merseyside Police) need to be honest, they need to be transparent, I’m trying to get answers from someone who holds all the cards,” Mr Rainsford added.

“There are reasons why they don’t want to highlight the situation. Basically they are failures.

“I think they just dropped the ball and it needs to be looked into, either through a coroner’s inquest or a public inquiry.”

After receiving a complaint, police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) instructed Merseyside Police to carry out an internal review of how the gun investigation was handled before Mikey’s murder, including the chronology of reports forensics.

The Rainsford family are waiting for answers but believe the case illustrates failings in the way police handle forensic evidence.

It comes amid growth experts worry about a crisis in UK forensic science which they say leads to fewer crimes being solved, more victims being hurt and more miscarriages of justice.

Last month, a report was handed to the Home Office showing a significant drop in the number of DNA profiles recovered from crime scenes, from almost 37,000 in 2014/15 to just over 24,000 last year.

said a crime scene investigator (CSI), who asked not to be identified and they were “not surprised” by the numbers, saying they were struggling to process as many scenes as they used to due to understaffing and increasing regulations.

“CSI departments nationwide are attending fewer scenes, with each scene taking longer to examine,” the investigator said.

“There are car examinations that are not completed and the victims have in some cases asked for the cars back before the CSI come back to examine them because they have been without the car for so long.

“Budgets could also be a contributing factor (to the drop in DNA profiles being recovered) because each department gets a set amount of money to spend and every time a DNA swab is sent it costs over 100 pounds sterling.

“If there’s any interpretation to consider, it’s hundreds of pounds extra. CIS department budgets are stretched with ISO, some forces may be getting tighter on their purse strings.”

Experts have also said and that advances in DNA testing have also led to an increase in cases where experts find more matches and therefore require more complex analyses, costing more time and money.

“DNA is still the solution because it’s very fast, if you have an urgent sample you can get a match within hours,” said one DNA specialist.

“The police can know if they have a match within eight hours. Each force has their own way of doing things, Merseyside do the tests in-house and then they just send the swabs to the lab.

“Most contracts for DNA have to be changed in a day. (Delays) quite often come from when the police examine it.”

The expert, who asked not to be named because of the nature of their job, claimed budget cuts to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had led to DNA tests not being carried out.

“There is no doubt that samples are not being processed because of costs,” they added.

At the same time, private providers contracted to carry out vital forensic work for the force have struggled to survive since the government-owned Forensic Science Service (FSS) was sold by the Tories in 2012.

After several years of financial instability, Cellmark, the company that tested the gun linked to Foy, was acquired by competitor Eurofins earlier this summer.

In approving the deal, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had seen “compelling evidence” that Cellmark faced “acute cash flow problems” which were impacting on the sustainability of the business and that, had it not been bought of Eurofins would be “out of the market”.

Mr Rainsford, who has twice been denied a full inquest into Mikey’s death, believes it should not have taken more than six months and his son’s murder for Cellmarks’ DNA evidence to be convincing enough for for the police to charge Foy with possession of a firearm.

He claims Merseyside Police refused to give him answers from the start.

“A lot of people say it shuts down (after a murder), I don’t know if it helps them or not, but I haven’t, this has become such a struggle from day one,” he added.

“They knew what Foy was capable of, but they seemed so slow and lifeless.

“I believe the delay in the medical examination cost my son his life.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Sabi Kaur, Head of Merseyside Police’s Professional Standards Department, said: “Forensic evidence plays a huge role, alongside other evidence, in securing successful prosecutions against criminals.

“Prior to Michael Rainsford’s murder, we did not have a DNA profile that was considered sufficient to arrest Foy or take the matter to the CPS for a charging decision.

“A number of lines of inquiry were ongoing, including forensic and further telecommunications work, with the aim of securing sufficient evidence to present to the Crown Prosecution Service and ensure a realistic prospect of prosecution.

“Further forensic results linking Foy to the firearm were not available until after Michael’s death on April 7.

“Following a complaint lodged by Michael Rainsford’s father in 2021 about the investigation, we carried out a review and investigated his claims.

Read on

“He appealed this finding to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) who asked that it be re-investigated with recommendations for further investigations to be carried out by our Professional Standards Department.

“We have apologized to Mr Rainford for any confusion from our previous correspondence with him and have identified some learning opportunities for our staff relating to aspects of the investigation carried out after 7 April.

“Our thoughts and sympathies remain with Michael’s family as they continue to grieve his tragic murder.”

Chief Constable Nick Dean, director of forensics at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which represents the force, said: “Forensic evidence plays a vital role in securing the right conviction as well as disproving a person’s involvement.

“Confidence in the use of any forensic science work is essential.

“It is up to investigators to use their skill and judgment to determine which method or range of methods will be most appropriate for each crime established according to consistent standards.

“Legalism can play an essential role in the criminal justice system, but it alone cannot put criminals behind bars and solve crimes. There will always be a need for trained officers to gather a range of evidence and present the strongest possible case to the courts.”

An IOPC spokesman said further investigation was needed to reach a conclusion on whether the service provided by Merseyside Police was acceptable in relation to the allegation that the force missed an opportunity to arrest Foy in 2020.

“As well as asking Merseyside Police to carry out an investigation into these allegations, we have also advised the force that they should consider registering three additional complaints which were not addressed by the initial complaint handling,” they said these.

“Merseyside Police must carry out the necessary further investigative work and the complainant will have a further right of review if they remain dissatisfied with the outcome.”