Saughton Park death jury view CCTV film of victim

FILM OF A man minutes before he was found dying in a park has been viewed by a murder trial jury.

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Ebrahim Aryaei Nekoo, 41, a private hire driver, became involved with a taxi driver as they both filled up at a petrol station, the closed circuit television footage showed.

The taxi driver, Stephen Nolan, 48, was seen pointing in the direction of nearby Saughton Park, Edinburgh, and his black cab led Mr Aryaei Nekoo’s Vauxhall Zafira out of the Sainsbury’s filling station.

Cameras on the route caught the vehicles heading towards and arriving at a car parking area near the Fords Road entrance to the park.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that no cameras recorded events in the car park, but the jury has been told that only a few minutes later, a badly injured Mr Aryaei Nekoo was found by a dog-walker.

Attempts were made to save him but he died at the scene.

Mr Aryaei Nekoo’s widow, Mobina Jafari, 32, from Iran, sat at the back of the courtroom as the footage was played to the jury.

Nolan, of Redhall Place, Edinburgh, denies murdering Mr Aryaei Nekoo, of Carrick Knowe Hill, Edinburgh, on 24 March last year. It is alleged he repeatedly drove his black cab at him, struck him on the body, and drove over him.

Earlier that day, it is claimed, Nolan shouted at Mr Aryaei Nekoo and adopted an aggressive and intimidating manner towards him at the petrol station in Westfield Road.

Nolan also pleads not guilty to other charges, including assaulting and menacing a motorist, and threatening a fellow taxi driver and putting him in a state of fear and alarm for his safety.

The trial has heard that a shocked-looking Nolan arrived at a police station and said there had been an exchange of words at the filling station, and the other man had followed him to the park.

He stated that he had to jump back into his taxi when Mr Aryaei Nekoo chased him with a knife, and, somehow, Mr Aryaei Nekoo had gone under the vehicle.

Sergeant Stuart Alexander, 46, said no knife had been found at the park.

The trial continues.