DPD driver received threats before he was killed - court told
A DPD worker who was killed by a gang of masked men in Shrewsbury last year had received a threatening phone call two weeks before his death, his colleague has told a court.
Aurman Singh of Topsham Road, Smethwick, died in Berwick Avenue, Coton Hill on Monday, August 21 last year.
The 23-year-old delivery worker had been set upon by seven men armed with an array of weapons including an axe, golf club, cricket bat and a machete.
On Wednesday, the third day of the murder trial of four men from the Black Country and a man from Peterborough accused of Mr Singh's killing, the victim's DPD colleague took to the stand to say how his co-worker had been threatened just two weeks before the attack.
Kamaljit Singh, who worked along side Aurman Singh for the delivery company most days, also told Stafford Crown Court that the pair had been to a festival the day before his colleague's death, where a fight had broken out involving "guns and machetes"
In a series of police interviews played to the jury, Kamlajit Singh told officers that Aurman Singh had told him he had been threatened over the phone two weeks before his death but that it was a "misunderstanding".
He also said the pair were at a kabaddi tournament in Derby the day before attack when a fight broke out and he had lost sight of his "close friend" Aurman Singh.
Taking the stand and speaking with the assistance of an interpreter, Kamaljit Singh told the court that he spent a lot of time with Aurman Singh, and that he had told him he had been threatened by a man called "Thined", a person who Kamaljit didn't know but had met.
"He told me about it two weeks before the Monday," he told defence council Mr Simon Spence KC. "He told me it was a threatening conversation."
"On the Sunday, you went to a kabaddi tournament in Derby and there was trouble involving guns and machetes. Did you see anyone involved? Was 'Thined' there?" asked Mr Spence.
The witness said he did not know anyone involved but he added that he and Aurman became separated at the tournament and had met at work the next day.
Earlier, the court had watched a tearful and visibly shaken Kamaljit Singh outline to police the attack on his coleague in an interview recorded on the day of the attack.
He said he had been driving the DPD van that day and Aurman was a front seat passenger. They had stopped do deliver a parcel in Berwick Avenue, and Kamaljit had left the van to deliver a parcel, while Aurman was sat in the passenger seat on his phone.
Kamaljit said he heard a door slam, and someone had got out of a car from the back seat of a car and had a black mask on, and he shouted to Aurman to "run".
He told the court his colleague had managed to run to the footpath but he was cut down by two men.
"I was running and when I looked back he [Aurman] was running as well and then one if them hit him with something and he fell."
He said he recalled seeing a "stocky man" and a "fitter man" both wearing masks. He said he saw his colleague hit by the "fitter" man with what he thought was a machete.
"He [Aurman] was on the footpath. He was shocked really. He didn't expect it. He didn't expect it," he said.
The court had previously heard how four of the men accused of the murder on Aurman Singh were still at large.
Of the five men standing trial, the jury has been told that one of the men, Sukhmandeep Singh, was not there on the day of the attack but was accused of being an "inside man" who tipped off the others as to Aurman Singh's movement's, while another of the men in the dock, Shivdeep Singh, is accused of being the getaway driver on the day but did not take part in the attack.
All five have been charged with murder.
Arshdeep Singh, 24, of Shaw Road in Tipton; Shivdeeep Singh, 26, of Greenfield Road in Smethwick; Manjot Singh, 24, of Greenfield Road, Smethwick; Jagdeep Singh, 22, of Goodrich Mews in Dudley; and Sukhmandeep Singh, 23, from Paynels in Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, all deny the charges.
The case continues.