According to reports, a British man who was embroiled in a “bitter” family dispute over properties given to him by his late mother was shot dead in Jamaica.

In the early hours of January 19, 48-year-old Michael Brown was shot and died in his bed while visiting family in Mike Town, Manchester.

According to a police complaint, Brown was ambushed by gunmen at around 12.20 am on Thursday when he was in an unfinished portion of a house in the neighbourhood.

Brown, commonly known as “Jimmy,” was shot in the upper torso during the assault. He was taken in an ambulance to the Mandeville Regional Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

Citing ‘community sources’, Jamaican radio station Nationwide 90FM said Brown had been involved in a ‘bitter’ family feud over several properties his recently deceased mother had left to him in her will in the island nation.

The station reported the dispute escalated on Wednesday between Brown and his relatives, and a heated argument took place.

Police have opened an investigation into the shooting and are collecting statements.

Detectives are now probing whether Brown was killed in connection to the feud, according to local reports.   

Speaking to the Jamaica Observer, Brown was in bed when he was shot, just four days after he laid his 74-year-old mother to rest.

Head of the Manchester police Superintendent Shane McCalla told the local newspaper that the police had previously intervened in the family dispute, which is reported to have been going on since 2015.

Speaking at the time, Jamaica Constabulary’s deputy commissioner Fitz Bailey called it ‘a contract killing that emanated from Britain’.

In a video statement, Bailey went on to say Patterson had arrived in Jamaica on 29 December with another man who was also from London. The pair had spent several days at an apartment before checking into the villa in Bogue Hill on New Year’s Day.

Later that day, Mr. Patterson, and the man staying with him, met a third person from Kingston, and all three of them stayed at the guest house in separate rooms.

It was around noon the following day that Mr. Patterson and the Jamaican man went to the villa’s pool deck, and a ‘lone man dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt’ was seen firing shots, Mr. Bailey said.

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