Trial Starts Into Bournemouth Shooting

A man who once starred as an extra in a music video with X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos was shot dead in a Dorset flat, a court heard.

Reece James, 21, suffered the point-blank blast to the head with a sawn-off shotgun in Bournemouth in July last year, Winchester Crown Court was told.

Mr James, who grew up in Wembley, north-west London, and was known by the name Style, had been staying in the resort for a few days when Wayne Stephenson, 34, Keifer Hutchinson, 23, and Jarome Parkinson, 25, travelled down in an Audi from London in what the prosecution allege was a pre-planned murder.

The trio were allegedly aided by Terri Campbell, 23, and Kieron Wellington, 30, who were boyfriend and girlfriend and lived in Bournemouth and gave directions to the flat where Mr James was staying.

But Timothy Mousley QC, prosecuting, told the jury that one of Mr James's friends, David Aston, had been having an affair with Campbell, and Wellington and the others had found out about it.

"The reason for the killing of Reece James may lie in jealousy and infidelity,'' the barrister told the court.

Wellington may have found photos of his girlfriend and Mr Aston on a phone along with a picture of a man called Tyrone Downer holding a substantial amount of cash, Mr Mousley explained.

This led to a large volume of mobile phone communication between several of the men, the barrister said, and the phone was later seized by police.

Neighbours heard fighting and shouting at the flat in Sea Road in the early hours of July 25 before a loud bang heard followed by the smell of gunpowder, the jury was told.

Mr Downer was in the flat and was woken by the noise and found Mr James slumped in the living room. He died "virtually instantaneously'' from the gunshot, the court heard.

Three men, who the prosecution allege were Stephenson, Parkinson and Hutchinson, were seen running from the flat on CCTV footage.

Police were then called and drugs paraphernalia and cannabis were found inside the two-bed property, Mr Mousley said.

Mobile phone traffic between the men in the car and Campbell and Wellington showed all five were involved, the prosecution claim.

"There was a plan between them in the killing of Reece James and each one of the defendants was involved in that plan in different ways,'' Mr Mousley told the jury.

The five were arrested in the months after the killing after being under police surveillance.

Wellington, Parkinson and Stephenson gave no comment in police interviews. Hutchinson said he had never been to Bournemouth and did not know Stephenson, and Campbell denied murder in a prepared statement and said she could not remember what was said on the phone that night.

Stephenson, formerly of Byron Court, Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, south-east London; Parkinson formerly of St Marys Terrace, Dover Road, Folkestone, Kent; Hutchinson formerly of Manaton Close, Peckham, south London, and Campbell and Wellington, formerly of West Cliff Studios, Durley Gardens, Bournemouth, all deny murder.

Mr James appeared briefly in a video with Tulisa and the rapper Nines in July last year that was filmed on a London council estate. It is not clear whether the pop star will be a judge on the next series of the X Factor.

The trial is expected to last seven weeks.