Murder accused revealed he had shot a man, court told

A MAN accused of murder revealed during a taxi trip that he had shot a man, a court has heard.

Paul Igoe was said to have admitted that he had carried out the shooting of father-of-one Martyn Barclay in Edinburgh in January 2009.

John Arthur, 27, told the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday that Igoe, or Hunter, was drunk during the taxi journey to his father's flat when he said Mr Barclay had been shot. He added: "He said it was him that done it. I can't remember his exact words."

Mr Arthur said he thought that Igoe made a gesture with his hand in a gun-type shape. He said: "It was when he told me he shot him."

He said that Igoe was told to shut up when he later repeated the admission while at the home of his father, Archie Hunter.

Mr Arthur, a former kitchen porter, said Igoe later gave a different version of events.

"He says when he went up the road he had found him and he was lying outside his mum's house," he told the court.

Igoe or Hunter, 37, and Caroline Igoe, 32, deny murdering her boyfriend, Mr Barclay, formerly of Hazelwood Grove, Edinburgh, on 17 January last year by shooting him in the head.

Mr Barclay's former partner, hairdresser Gillian Lodge, 39, who is the mother of his three-year-old son Michael, said her relationship with him came to an end in November 2008 and she believed he had started going out with Caroline Igoe in December.

Ms Lodge said she received a phone call from her on 17 January last year looking for a number for Mr Barclay's father. She said she asked why she wanted it and was told Mr Barclay had been shot.

"I asked her how bad it was. She told me he was with the doctors. She didn't know," she said.

Ms Lodge said she had gone to the hospital but a decision was taken to switch off Mr Barclay's life support machine. She was asked by advocate depute Alex Prentice QC whether he had ever expressed any suicidal thoughts to her and replied: "No."

Retired refrigeration engineer James Wilson, 78, of Hazelwood Grove, Edinburgh, said he was wakened by a noise on the morning of 17 January.

The former special constable said he heard a bang which he thought was a car smashing into another. Then he thought he heard Caroline Igoe shouting to her mother and a male voice calling to her.

The Igoes have also pled not guilty to firearms offences involving possession of a gun. The pair have denied attempting to defeat the ends of justice. Part of the charge alleges that they removed the handgun used in the the murder from the crime scene.

A third accused, Kenneth Carruthers, 37, has also denied firearms offences and attempting to defeat the ends of justice. It is alleged that while acting with another he took possession of a gun at Walter Scott Avenue and transported it to Craigmillar Castle Park and buried it.

The trial continues.