Accused saw murder 'in newspaper'

Hell's Angel Gerry Tobin was shot near Warwick last year

A man accused of murdering a Hells Angel on the M40 motorway told the jury he knew nothing about the shooting until he read about it in a newspaper.

Malcolm Bull, 54, is one of six men who deny killing Gerry Tobin, 35, from south-east London, as he rode home from a festival in Warwickshire last year.

He told Birmingham Crown Court the first knew of the shooting on 12 August was from the newspaper the next day.

The six men on trial also deny firearms offences.

Mr Tobin, a mechanic, was returning home from the Bulldog Bash, near Stratford-upon-Avon, when he was shot in the neck, the court has heard.

Mr Bull is on trial alongside Dan Garside, 42, Karl Garside, 45, Simon Turner, 41, Dean Taylor, 47, and 46-year-old Ian Cameron.

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

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

'Reprisal fears'

Prosecutors allege that Mr Tobin, from Mottingham, was a senior member of a London chapter of the Hells Angels and was a victim of gang rivalry.

The court has heard that the six men on trial and Creighton were the entire membership of the South Warwickshire chapter of the Outlaws.

Mr Bull told the court that when he saw the report of the shooting he realised that somebody from the chapter could have been involved.

Prosecutors asked him why, when he heard somebody had murdered someone else, he did not go to a police station.

Prosecuting, Timothy Raggatt QC, said it was because he knew "they were up to their neck in it".

But questioned by his defence counsel, Mr Bull said he not done so because he feared reprisals.

The trial continues.