A DRUGS supplier was allegedly shot at point-blank range, with a sawn-off shotgun that had been stolen from a clay pigeon shooter, a court heard today.

Gurinderjit Rai, 41, was found dead in a Ford Fiesta in Shepherds Farm Lane in Corhampton, near Bishop's Waltham, by two horse riders on July 13, 2019.

“Sooty deposits” were found on Mr Rai, which a jury at Winchester Crown Court was told meant that his killer would have been at close range when the shots were fired.

Giving evidence Robert Huw Griffiths, forensic scientist firearms examiner at Forensic Access, said: “He had catastrophic injuries to his head and his neck which was as a result of two separate shotgun discharges, one to the side of his head and another across his neck.”

He said that if the gun was “beyond a metre I wouldn’t expect to see any sooty deposits”, adding that he believed the muzzle, the front end of a barrel, was “in contact with the skin at the time of injuries were caused”.

Home Office pathologist Dr Deborah Cook explained that Mr Rai had suffered a wound around 4cm to the left side of his head and another up to 2.4cm to his neck.

A CT scan carried out the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, in Winchester, found four shotgun pellets in the right side of his pelvis, which had travelled through Mr Rai’s body.

Dr Cook added: “The post mortem examination showed unsurvivable injuries to the head and to the neck. There were two shotgun wounds, both contact or near contact range.

“It is not possible from the examination to say the order in which these shotgun wounds were sustained.”

The post mortem concluded that Mr Rai, who had cocaine in his system at the time of his death, died of shotgun wounds to the head and neck.

The court was told that the shotgun, a Beretta 682 Gold E, allegedly used to kill Mr Rai had been stolen from a clay pigeon shooter in 2015.

Corin Barlow is said have kept the gun in his flat in Winchester, seeking information about the weapon from his friend and veteran Max Arthur Chambers in 2017.

Shown pictures of the firearm in court today Mr Chambers confirmed that the shotgun police believe was used to shoot Mr Rai is the same gun that Barlow had previously shown him.

The court was told that experts cannot definitively say whether the shotgun from Barlow’s flat was the gun that killed Mr Rai.

Following the murder, the prosecution claim, the accused had tried to hide the weapon, by giving it to Morgan Tarrant, who has already admitted to assisting an offender and possessing a shortened shotgun without a firearm certificate.

The jury was shown a video of Tarrant guiding police to where he hid the gun and a cartridge, suspected of being involved in Mr Rai’s killing, in a wooded area of Whitchurch, near Basingstoke.

Aston Hannis, 29, of Leah Gardens, Eastleigh; Statham, 30, of Crescent Close, Oliver's Battery; Barlow, 41, from Horley, Surrey; and Paul White, 27, of Dyson Drive, Abbotts Barton, all deny murder.

Phillip Hodan, 43, of Longwood Dean Lane, Owslebury, denies participating in the criminal activities of an organised crime group.

The trial continues.