Three suspects accused of DPD murder in Shrewsbury had worked for the delivery company

Three of the men accused of killing a DPD driver as he made deliveries in Shrewsbury last year had worked for the same parcel company in the past, a court has heard.

Aurman Singh was “brutally” killed in Berwick Avenue in the town on August 21. He had been attacked by a group of men who had travelled from the Black Country in two cars, a Mercedes and an Audi, and who allegedly beat and hacked the 23-year-old DPD worker with an array of weapons including an axe, wooden stave and a golf club.

In the trial of five men accused of the murder, Stafford Crown Court heard yesterday that three of the defendants in the dock had all worked for DPD. Under cross-examination, Manjot Singh, 25, of Greenfield Road, Smethwick, admitted to the court that he had previously worked for the same delivery company as victim Aurman Singh. The court had already heard that the alleged getaway driver of the Audi, Shivdeep Singh had also worked for DPD when after he came to the UK on a student visa in 2020.

And the man accused of passing a photograph of the registration of Aurman Singh’s van to the others, Sukhmandeep Singh, was working at DPD’s Stoke depot at the time of the alleged murder. Assistant defence counsel for Sukhmandeep Singh, Mr Paul Smith, asked the defendant: “You said to the court you worked as a concrete finisher, but before that you worked for DPD didn’t you, as a driver?” “Yes,” replied Manjot Singh. “So you would have been aware that people back at the DPD base were able to check on the progress of vans making deliveries?” asked Mr Smith. “I don’t know about that, I was a driver not a manager,” he replied. “And as a driver you would have had a mobile phone or other mobile device that would have connected you to the depot,” Mr Smith said.

“Yes,” Manjot Singh said.

“So you knew the depot knew what the DPD vehicle was up to. That’s a system you were aware of?” Mr Smith asked.

“Yes,” Manjot Singh replied.

Later, assistant prosecution counsel, Mr James Bruce, attempted to rubbish the defendant’s claim that he had “snatched” the bloody wooden stave from one of the men in the Mercedes who had been beating Aurman Singh and had tried to stop the “fight”.

He asked the defendant if he had “blood on his hands” after he was arrested a few hours after the attack or if he had any on his clothes.

Manjot Singh said he did not.

“Your story is that you got hit in the hand with the wooden stave and after that, you had grabbed it,” Mr Bruce said. “But we know that at the time, the wooden stave was wet with Aurman Singh’s blood and you managed to grab it and not get any blood on you or your clothes?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know how he tried to hit me, I could have grabbed the end,” he replied.

Mr Bruce also said Manjot Singh’s attempt to blame the men in the Mercedes and in particular Sehajpal Singh was “shifting the blame”.

Sehajpal Singh along with Harpreet Singh, Mehakdeep Singh and Harwinder Singh Turna are accused of driving to Shrewsbury in a Mercedes and attacking Aurman Singh, but all four men remain at large and are still wanted in connection with the killing.

Mr Bruce added: “What good were you to their plan then? You were a car full of witnesses. If you did not know what was going to happen weren’t you a danger to the Mercedes group?”

Manjot Singh replied: “As far as we were concerned we were going to go to a party, I don’t know how it happened all of a sudden.”Arshdeep Singh, 24, of Shaw Road, Tipton; Shivdeep Singh, 27, Manjot Singh, 25, and Jagdeep Singh, 22, of Greenfield Road in Smethwick; and Sukhmandeep Singh, 23, from Peterborough, all deny murder. The trial continues.