A drug dealer murdered his supplier by shooting him dead in a rural layby after "tensions rose" following a robbery of his safe house, a court has heard today.

The body of Gurinderjit Rai was found in a Ford Fiesta in the countryside lane in Corhampton, near Bishop's Waltham, by two horse riders on July 13, 2019.

Dealer Aston Hannis, 29, of Eastleigh, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court accused of the murder of the 41-year-old originally from Eastleigh but more recently based in Cheshire.

Andrew Langdon QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the fatal shot that killed Mr Rai, known as G, is believed to have been fired from a Mercedes A-class saloon car containing Hannis and co-defendant Charlie Statham, 30, of Winchester.

The pair are believed to have then dumped the car in a field where it was set alight and they were picked up by Paul White, 27, of Winchester, and taken to the home of Phillip Hodan, 43, in nearby Owslebury.

The weapon, a sawn-off Beretta 12-bore shotgun, was supplied by 41-year-old Corin Barlow, from Horley, Surrey, the prosecutor said.

Mr Langdon explained that Hannis was a drug dealer who supplied cocaine and cannabis to the Winchester area with evidence suggesting he sold drugs worth £240,000 in a six-week period.

He said that Mr Rai had been Hannis' supplier but "tensions" had risen after a safe house where Hannis kept his drugs was raided.

He added that Hannis also had a large outstanding debt to Mr Rai.

Mr Langdon said: "Whether Mr Harris thought that G, Mr Rai, had some hand in the robbery or whether he thought one way of ridding himself of his large debt to Mr Rai was to shoot him or whether he simply wanted to rob Mr Rai of the money he was likely to have in his possession that night or a mixture of some or all of those things, the precise limit of the motivation will be difficult to define with precision.

"But whatever their motivation, one thing the prosecution say you will not doubt is that it was Aston Hannis, Charlie Statham and Paul White and Corin Barlow, the man who supplied the gun, who effected this killing.

"They were, in law, jointly responsible, each of them parties to a joint enterprise which resulted in the murder of Mr Rai."

Hannis, Statham, White and Barlow are charged with murder while Barlow is also charged with possession of a firearm with intent to enable Hannis to endanger life.

Hodan is accused of being involved with an organised crime group involved in supplying class A drugs and murder.

The defendants deny the charges and the trial continues.