A HEROIN addict was murdered because he was forcing fellow addicts to hand over drugs and money, a crown court heard.

Paul Rothwell was shot at close range in his Blackburn home just minutes after smoking crack cocaine with two fellow drug addicts and prostitutes.

Kenneth Francis Hartley, 26, of Denville Road, Blackburn, pleaded not guilty to murder when he appeared at Preston Crown Court.

The court heard how 24-year-old Paul Rothwell was shot in the head and then the stomach as he lay on the kitchen floor of his home in Whitehead Street, Bank Top, last March.

He died from massive head injuries at Blackburn Royal Infirmary less than an hour after the shooting.

Prosecuting barrister David Steer, QC, told the jury: "Paul Rothwell was a heroin addict who injected heroin and in order to obtain his supply of the drug he taxed drug addicts in the Blackburn area.

"That is to say he bullied people into handing over money and drugs and as a result of that behaviour became disliked by a number of people. On at least one occasion he was badly beaten." Rothwell took in five lodgers to help pay his rent after splitting with his long-term partner and the mother of his child. The lodgers were all heroin addicts and three were prostitutes.

Mr Steer said Sharon Gray, another drug addict and prostitute who lived in neighbouring Addison Street, saw Kenneth Hartley minutes before the shooting.

She claimed she saw Hartley in the alley behind Rothwell's home carrying a sawn-off shotgun.

Paul Rothwell, who minutes earlier had completed a heroin deal, was smoking crack cocaine in his kitchen with lodger Leah Rodwell and a friend Lesley Liddiard.

The two women later told police there was a knock on the door and Kenneth Hartley walked into the kitchen with the gun. Mr Steer said: "The women saw the double barrels of the gun come round the door and into the kitchen.

"The defendant was standing at the door and was not wearing anything over his head or his face. The women heard a bang and saw smoke. The deceased had been shot in the head and fell to the floor.

"There was a second shot into the stomach of the deceased. Hartley then turned to the women and said 'You have seen nothing, right. You have seen nothing.' As he said this he waved the gun at them."

The women then ran to a neighbouring house and raised the alarm. Before the police arrived Lesley Liddiard tried to clean the blood from her sweatshirt and trainers.

Both women were interviewed by the police but were too afraid to tell them who had shot Paul Rothwell.

Mr Steer said the next day Kenneth Hartley and another man met Lesley Liddiard in Blackburn Shopping Centre and tried to talk her out of giving evidence. The meeting was captured on the centre's security cameras.

The following day Hartley spoke to Lesley Liddiard again and told her to go to a solicitor with a signed statement saying she had witnessed the murder and to give false information. She went to a solicitor's office in Preston but decided not to go through with the plan at the last minute. Hartley met Lesley Liddiard again and told her to go to the police and tell them an Asian man she had never seen before had carried out the killing.

Lesley Liddiard asked about Leah Rodwell, who by this time was in protective police custody. Hartley told her not to worry because 'There was no way Leah Rodwell would make it to crown court'.

Mr Steer said once it became obvious Lesley Liddiard was going to co-operate with the police, Hartley went on the run with the help of several friends including one named Mark Elliott.

Mark Elliott and a woman rented a flat in Penwortham under false names for Hartley to hide out in.

A few days later, police arrested Hartley and several friends outside a pub near the flat.

Hartley was interviewed by detectives at Blackburn police station. He refused to say anything but handed a typed statement to the police.

Hartley claimed to be a friend of the dead man and said he did not shoot him. He claimed that if he said anything else it could lead to the further bloodshed and the possible death of one of his friends or family.

The case continues.

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