The daughter of a drug dealer who was fatally shot in his own flat has described how the teenager accused of his murder was forcing her father to sell crack cocaine.
Alan Garbutt died after he was shot in the chest at close range with a homemade ‘slam-gun’ shotgun by a 17-year-old who had moved himself into the dead man’s east Cleveland flat.
Adele Garbutt accepted that her 62-year-old father had a long history of drug addiction and drug dealing before he became involved with the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The self-confessed former drug dealer told jurors how she has watched her father and the teenager ‘cooking-up’ crack cocaine in the flat which was being used as a drugs den.
Read more: Teenager fatally shot man in the chest with homemade 'slam-gun', court hears
Ms Garbutt told Teesside Crown Court how she was concerned about her dad as he looked depressed in the weeks before his death and had lost weight.
The prosecution witness said she visited her father three weeks before his death and the accused was in his flat at Helmsley House in Guisborough.
She said: “Dad had a mark on his forehead. The accused said to me 'what would you do if I said to you, you owed me a grand?' Then he indicated to my dad 'that silly old b******, I had a gun to his head and he said he’d pay me'."
Under cross examination from the teenager’s barrister, Peter Makepeace KC, Ms Garbutt accepted that her father’s flat was a drugs den and she was aware that he "cooked-up" crack cocaine with the teenager accused of murdering him.
The witness admitted to Mr Makepeace that she had previously sold drugs from her father’s flat but denied that her family are lying about his relationship with the accused because she was afraid the police would find out about her own drug dealing.
He said: “The reality is, that you know full well, your father was running a drugs den from his flat?”
Ms Garbutt replied: “He was running it with the accused.”
Another relative, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told jurors how he saw the accused loading the ‘slam-gun’ and putting a cartridge in it.
He said: “He put the gun to his forehead and slammed it three times. Once very gently, then harder each time. He said, ‘you are a lucky man Al G’.”
In police interview the jury heard how the accused told detectives that he was "upset and angry" when he realised some of his drugs were missing and maintained he didn’t know that the metal pipe he was holding a gun.
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The court heard how the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, shot Mr Garbutt once to the chest before fleeing the scene and hiding the dismantled homemade ‘slam-gun’ in a nearby field.
The 62-year-old, from East Cleveland, died following the fatal shooting at Helmsley House, Guisborough, last summer.
Fire crews and ambulance crews also attended the block of flats at Helmsley House in Guisborough, from around 2.20am on August 8, where the body of Mr Garbutt was discovered.
The trial continues.
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