A MAN linked to the death of a five-year-old Blackburn boy has been "executed" in gangland-style killing.

Billy Webb, aged 42, was found shot in the head from point blank range at a flat on Friday -- just five months before he was due in court for conspiring to supply drugs.

Mr Webb, from Bolton, had been living in Wigan and police found him in Whiteledge Road, Bryn, Wigan.

A woman, believed to be his girlfriend, was also shot. Police are treating his death as suspicious.

Mr Webb's violent death comes two-and-a-half years after he figured in the Dillon Hull murder trial.

Dillon, aged five, was shot in the head in Bankfield Street, Deane, Bolton, by a lone gunman. He was the innocent young victim of a drugs war.

It was claimed at the Preston Crown Court murder trial that Webb and Dillon's stepfather John Bates had a meeting at the Ancient Shepherd pub in Bolton town centre about drug-dealing shortly before Dillon was shot.

The youngster, who had only moved from Blackburn five months before his death.

He had been a pupil at Longshaw County Primary School and lived in the Highercroft area of town.