‘Friend admitted he had done in a judge’

A MAN allegedly confessed to a friend that he had “done in a judge” after being paid £10,000, a court has heard.

Robert Graham, who is on trial for the attempted murder of Leslie Cumming, a senior legal figure, in Edinburgh, said he had been hired to “give the guy a good working over,” a former workmate claimed to police.

A jury heard that Graham, 46, and Nicholas Wells, 33, were scaffolders working at Wembley Stadium in London when the admission was said to have been made.

Giving evidence at the High Court in Edinburgh, Wells said he could not remember what he had told the police in a statement, part of which was read to him. He was noted as having said: “He told me around this time he had done a judge in in Edinburgh, having jumped out some bushes at him.

“I can recall him telling me the guy from the BMW paid him £10,000 to do the job and told him to give the guy a good working over.”

The jury also heard Graham had been extradited from Australia to stand trial for the attempted murder of Mr Cumming, 68, outside his Murrayfield home, on 23 January, 2006.

Mr Cumming was deputy chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland when, he has told the court, he was assaulted and suffered multiple injuries in a lane at the rear of his home.

The attack with a knife or knives has been described as sustained, vicious and frenzied, and Mr Cumming was scarred for life by wounds to his face and body.

Graham denies the charge of attempted murder, and stated in a special defence that the offence was not committed by him but by a third party, whose name he did not know.

The trial continues.