One of the three men currently on trial at Truro Crown Court for attempted murder said in police interview he was very scared of the consequences after ‘singing like a canary’.

Gavin Smale is on trial alongside Paul Amoah and Lee Mitchell after a drug dealer Yarislav Divorkis, known as Yarick, nearly died after being shot in the back - allegedly by Amoah during a break-in at a property in Redruth last year.

Another man in the property Terry Madden was hit five times on the head with a hammer during the incident at a house in Drump Road on July 6, the court was told. 

Smale, aged 43, of Fore Street, Redruth, Amoah, aged 38, of No Fixed Abode, Camborne and Lee Mitchell, aged 28, of Tresaderns Road, Redruth are each charged under joint enterprise with one count of attempted murder, two counts of wounding with intent, one count of unlawful wounding and one count of aggravated burglary with weapons. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

During a police interview read out in court by the officer in charge of the case and the prosecution barrister, who read Smale's replies, Smale said he was very scared of the consequences for telling them what happened.

He said he had waited outside the back door of the property while the other two men allegedly broke in.

“I’m singing like a canary, I’m scared, very scared,” he said in the police interview. “I have told you far too much. Told you what I shouldn’t have done.”

He said he just went along to the house to score some drugs after being picked up by the other two men in a blue Mini. He said he owed them money for drugs and felt he had to get into the car.

He said he was outside the back door talking to one of the neighbours when he heard a gun go off and Mitchell screaming "Tell me where the f**kin’ safe is!”

“I couldn’t hear everything but I could hear the sound of someone being hurt,” he said. “I didn’t have any idea anybody had been shot.

“You don’t appreciate the danger I am in giving you a statement. These people don’t f**k about.”

He said he saw Terry Madden in his boxers being dragged out of the house by Mitchell and could see Terry had been been hit with a hammer, as he was bleeding.

“Lee had his arm around him with the hammer still in his hand,” he said. “I could see a dent in Terry’s head.”

He said he felt “vile and disgusting” as well as physically sick.

He said Mitchell told him to shout to 'Pablo' (Paul Amoah) to come out but he refused saying it was nothing to do with him so Mitchell did it, shouting: ‘We need to get out of here’. Amoah came out and they left leaving Terry in the garden.

“I felt sick,” Smale said in police interview. He said he didn’t want to go with them but they made him. He said they looked after him for ‘crack’ and ‘smoke’. He said they wanted to ‘buy my silence’.

They made sure he stayed with them: “If they’d had gone I would have stayed,” he said. He said he was taken back to the blue Mini they had arrived in which belonged to a woman.

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He said when they returned to the woman's house they took drugs including heroin.

He told the police interviewer he smoked a lot of crack: “I like smoking crack,” he said.

He said he got in the car with Amoah and Mitchell because he owed them drug money.

“When you get drug dealers turning up at your house saying get in the car and you owe them money you have to do as they wish,” he said.

He added he wished he had not told Amoah he was going to get drugs from Terry and Yarick as they were his friends while Amoah was just an acquaintance and Mitchell he hardly knew.

“They are my friends,” he said, referring to Yarick and Terry. “They gave my missus free heroin when she was ill.”

He said the first he knew that Amoah had a gun was when he pulled it out of his man bag. "I said ‘What the f**k is that?'," he said.

"I assumed it to be a real gun. I know Pablo doesn’t mess about.”

He said he was the only one not dressed up in masks and coats and he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when he arrived at the house because it was warm - clothes, he said, he was still wearing when he was later arrested by armed police, along with Amoah and Mitchell.

The trial continues.