A MAN has told how his car was taken from him before being used for dumping the body of Worcester drug dealer Michael Kelly.

Neil Cooper told the jury on the third day of the trial of Gerald Edwards, who denies murder, that he was visited by Ashley Shearon on the evening of July 1, 2002.

Mr Cooper was at the Drakes Broughton home of his girlfriend, who was known to Shearon.

Mr Cooper said he only vaguely knew Shearon, who has admitted perverting the course of justice, but is yet to be sentenced.

At Birmingham Crown Court, Mr Cooper said Shearon had stayed the night at the home along with a girlfriend.

Whisky

The next morning, Mr Cooper bought whisky for him, which he drank steadily through the morning as Shearon instructed him to drive himself and some of his associates around Worcester.

That afternoon, Cooper drove the blue Ford Escort to an address in Avon Road, Tolladine, where Shearon and another passenger met a man with a fresh tattoo, which prosecution evidence claims was Edwards.

Mr Cooper said they claimed they needed the car and he complied as he was feeling intimidated.

"I had a choice, but felt quite threatened at the time," he said.

Later that evening, Mr Cooper and his girlfriend met Shearon in the Dragon pub in Worcester, and a few minutes later Mr Cooper went outside the pub where a scruffy man in his 40s was in the driver's seat of the car.

Borrow

According to the prosecution this was Gary Wood, aged 46, of Lowesmoor, who also denies perverting the course of justice.

However, Shearon took the vehicle again.

"He (Shearon) turned around and said we need to borrow it again," said Mr Cooper. "I felt I had no choice."

The next Mr Cooper knew about his car was when police told him it had been found burnt out.

Liverpool man Kelly, 35, who lived with Edwards, 32, in Teme Road, Tolladine, was killed with an axe and had his body sawn in two before being dumped in a copse near Bidford-on Avon, Warwickshire, between June 30 and July 4 last year.

The trial continues.