Man denies role in biker killing

Gerry Tobin was shot after attending a biker festival

A man accused of murdering a biker who was shot dead on a motorway as he rode home from a festival has said he was at work on the day of the killing.

Simon Turner, 41, of Nuneaton, also said that on the day Gerry Tobin was shot, he had given his mobile phone to a man who has admitted the murder.

Mr Tobin, 35, of south-east London, was killed while riding along the M40 in Warwickshire in August last year.

Six men deny murder and firearms charges. A seventh has admitted murder.

Prosecutors allege Mr Tobin, a Hells Angel, was killed by members of a rival gang, the Outlaws.

Mr Turner told Birmingham Crown Court he had been suspended from the South Warwickshire chapter of the Outlaws after arguing with other members of the group in the hours before Mr Tobin was shot.

Patches

Sean Creighton suspended him on the morning of 12 August last year, he said.

"He told me to hand my patches to him. He said I was suspended and he would sort it out later," he said.

"As Sean left he told me to give him my phone."

He added he assumed Creighton wanted his phone to stop him from "bitching" about his suspension to other club members.

Creighton had ordered him to stay at the industrial unit in Coventry, where they had met, and where he was working on a van's suspension, he said.

Mr Tobin had been returning from the annual Bulldog Bash festival in Long Marston, near Stratford-upon-Avon, when he was shot.

Karl Garside, 45, Simon Turner, 41, Dane Garside, 42, Malcolm Bull, 53, Dean Taylor, 47, and 46-year-old Ian Cameron have all denied murder and firearms offences.

Their full addresses cannot be published for legal reasons but they are all from Coventry, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes.

Sean Creighton, 44, of Coventry, has admitted murder and firearms offences and will be sentenced later.

The trial continues.