A pair of callous young murderers tried to use a drug-addicted homeless man as their fall guy when they killed a cyclist during a turf war.
Brandon Ali and Joey Matthews plied Ian Maughan with drugs before persuading him to go to the police and confess he was behind the wheel of the white Vauxhall Insignia that was deliberately driven into Carl Eland.
The father-of-four died four days after he knocked of his bike while cycling with his girlfriend sitting on the handlebars in August last year. His partner, Kassi Weir, suffered minor injuries.
During their trial, Teesside Crown Court heard how the pair lavished designer clothing on hapless Mr Maughan after promising to wipe his drug debt in a desperate attempt to escape justice.
Read more: Carl Eland's world of drugs, a 'Wild West' shoot-out and a fatal hit-and-run
It was only as the realisation of the consequences of Mr Eland death dawned on him that Mr Maughan went back to the police and gave a true account of what happened on the night of August 21.
Mr Maughan, who has since died following a drug overdose, was interviewed on several occasions and murder squad detectives tried to get to the bottom of what really happened.
Transcripts of his interviews were read out in court and jurors were able to hear for themselves the distressed and drug-addled state of the witness as he begged them to collect his methadone and struggled to stay awake during the interviews.
He told officers: "I didn’t want to do it. I was pressured into doing it because I was full of tablets. I took 20, 30 zoppies (the street name for sedative Zopiclone) and about two 20 bags of crack.
"I was wired. They gave me more. They were being too nice."
When he finally gave the true version of events, the witness said: "Joey was the driver. They've had an ongoing feud for a long time. They told me that they put him over the bonnet basically.
"They've had trouble before with him. They drove past him; there he is and bang."
Mr Eland died after suffering fatal injuries when he was knocked from a bike in the Homerton Road and Gribdale Road area of Middlesbrough by the pair as a violent drug feud escalated to murder.
Maughan had told officers he thought he had clipped the kerb but CCTV footage from the scene showed that was clearly not the case as the car was deliberately driven at Mr Eland and his partner.
The car was later found burned out near to Cleveland Police’s Hemlington headquarters.
Detectives were able to source more CCTV footage of the car being bought by Ali and Matthews just days before the fatal collision.
In January 2017, Maughan admitted charges of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, having no insurance and driving while disqualified.
He was jailed for three years and four months and banned him from the roads until he takes an "extended re-test" after his release.
And it was the impact of this serious accident which eventually resulted in Maughan realising the enormity of his lies to cover up for the two murderers.
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