Murder suspect 'told friend he had shot victim hours earlier'

A MURDER accused admitted to his friend during a taxi trip across the Capital that he had shot Martyn Barclay just hours before, a court has heard.

Paul Igoe was said to have made the admission as they took a cab ride to his father's home in Dalry on the day Mr Barclay was gunned down beside his Inch home.

Igoe's friend John Arthur told the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday: "He said it was him that done it. I can't remember his exact words. He said that Martyn was going up to put his mum's windows in."

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Mr Arthur, 27, said that Igoe also made a gun gesture with his hand while describing what had happened, before repeating the confession at his father's home in Morrison Crescent.

He said that Igoe's father, Archibald Hunter, had told his son to "shut up", but "didn't look shocked" by the admission.

Mr Arthur told the court that Igoe gave a different version later that day. "He said when he went up the road he had found him and he was lying outside his mum's house," he said.

The witness said he had been out drinking with Igoe and other friends at The Tron pub in Hunter Square and the Walkabout bar at the Omni Centre the night before Mr Barclay was shot on 17 January last year.

Mr Arthur said he had been travelling back to Igoe's home in Walter Scott Avenue in the Inch the following morning when he saw the police cordon around Hazelwood Grove.

He later joined Igoe in the taxi ride to his father's before returning to the Inch address that Saturday night.

While there, Mr Arthur said that a third co-accused, Kenneth Carruthers, 37, who was also at the house, told him he had come into contact with a handgun. He told the court: "I called him an a*******. I thought it was stupid of him picking it up."

Igoe, 37, and his sister, Caroline Igoe, 32, deny murdering her boyfriend Mr Barclay by shooting him in the head. The Igoes have also pleaded not guilty to offences involving possession of a gun.

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Carruthers denies a charge of taking the gun and burying it in Craigmillar Castle Park.

Mr Barclay's former partner, hairdresser Gillian Lodge, 39, who is the mother of his three-year-old son, Michael, told the court that her relationship with him came to an end in November 2008.

Ms Lodge said she got a call from Caroline Igoe 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.

She was asked by advocate depute Alex Prentice QC whether he had ever expressed any suicidal thoughts and replied: "No."

Retired refrigeration engineer James Wilson, 78, of Hazelwood Grove, said he was woken by a "great bang" on 17 January.

Mr Wilson said he heard Caroline Igoe shouting on her mother and a male voice calling on her. "There was somebody lying down shouting on Caroline before Caroline came. He kept shouting for Caroline once or twice then he went very faint," he said.

The trial continues.

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