A man accused of assisting offenders following the murder of a council worker told police he gave “no comment” answers in an interview so he did not “get hurt”.
Environmental health officer Ashley Dale, 28, was shot with a Skorpion machine pistol at home in Old Swan, Liverpool, in the early hours of August 21 last year.
Kallum Radford, 26, denies assisting an offender by taking possession of the Hyundai car used in the shooting and arranging for it to be stored at an address.
When arrested, after the car was discovered on the drive of his friend Abbie Jevins in St Helens, Merseyside, last October, Radford initially told police he had been stopped in the street by two men he did not know who paid him £100 to store the car, Liverpool Crown Court heard on Wednesday.
In a second police interview, which was played to the court, Radford answered “no comment” to a number of questions from officers.
He told them: “You’re trying to trip me up on questions, that’s why I’m no commenting everything.
“You are trying to get justice for that girl and I hope you do get justice but I have got to go ‘no comment’ so I don’t get hurt.”
The officer asked if he could explain that and he answered: “No comment.”
In his first interview on October 11, Radford, who was accompanied by his sister as an appropriate adult, said he was walking to his friend’s house in St Helens “to get stoned” in late August when a car approached him and the driver asked if he knew a driveway or garage where they could park.
He told officers the man said someone was “trying to smash their car up” and he wanted somewhere to park it for a week.
Radford said he called his friend, Ms Jevins, and when she agreed to store the car he got into the vehicle with the men and travelled there.
He told officers: “The lad said ‘there’s £100 for you, lad’.”
Radford said he thought the passenger of the car had a name like “Zest”.
The court has heard defendant Sean Zeisz uses the nickname Zest.
Radford also told officers he knew defendant Joseph Peers.
But he answered no comment in his second interview when asked about calls between him and Peers in August and September last year.
In a third interview, in January this year, Radford told police it was Peers who asked him to store the car.
He said Peers gave him £100 and said he would pick the Hyundai up in a week but then “kept making excuses”.
Radford said he did not initially tell police the truth because he was “scared”.
Asked about Peers, he said: “He’s a rat, a horrible rat, putting me in this situation.
“But, back then I would have thought he was a friend.”
He then told police he was not sure if the man with Peers was Zest.
He told officers he did not know the car was involved in the murder and said he was “petrefied”.
He added: “They’re going to come for me, aren’t they? People are going to come for me.
“As long as my family’s going to be OK, I don’t want nobody else getting hurt because of what I have said to you.”
Peers, 29, Zeisz, 28, and co-defendants Niall Barry, 26, Ian Fitzgibbon, 28, and James Witham, 41, deny the murder of Miss Dale, conspiracy to murder Mr Harrison and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a Skorpion sub-machine gun, and ammunition.
Witham admits Miss Dale’s manslaughter but claims he did not know she was there when he fired shots inside her home on Leinster Road.
