A murder trial has heard evidence from one of the suspected killers who claimed he had nothing to do with the attack as he was at home at the time cutting up drugs to sell.

Suspect John Churchley told a jury he was not involved in a gang attack which left 41-year-old Alan Riddock dead on a Bedminster street in May last year.

Churchley told a jury at Bristol Crown Court on March 30 that he was cutting up about £7,000 worth of drugs at his cousin Jason's flat in Bedminster when his mother Diane rang them, concerning some kind of problem at her house.

He told the court it was his brother Paddy and cousins Jason and Craig Hartrey who left the flat before returning some 15 minutes later looking, in his words "weird".

Churchley said he "definitely wasn't" involved in any attack and he later found out a man had been killed in Bedminster.

The jury has been told that Mr Riddock had been standing outside the front of the Park House pub, in St John's Lane, when he dropped his trousers and exposed his backside in view of Diane Churchley, who was stood outside her home opposite.

It is claimed enraged Diane Churchley ordered her sons John and Liam and their cousins Jason and Craig Hartrey to come to her house, which prompted the fatal encounter involving baseball bats and a samurai sword.

Denying murder on May 24 last year are: Diane Churchley, 50, of St John's Lane, Bedminster; Liam Churchley, 20, of St John's Lane, Bedminster; Jason Hartrey, 39, of Dawlish Road, Bedminster; John Churchley, 23, of Queens Road, Withywood; and Craig Hartrey, 36, of St John's Lane, Bedminster.

All of the accused also deny intending to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Riddock's friend, Jonathan Stephens. Diane Churchley is also charged with assisting an offender by washing Liam Churchley's clothes and shoes and washing and hiding his baseball bat.

John Churchley explained that he was at his cousin Jason's flat in Dawlish Road on May 24 last year when his mother phoned up and spoke to Jason's girlfriend Tracey Nelmes. Churchley .

The self-confessed drug dealer said: "I was sat at the table sorting out some drugs. Jason spoke to my mother, I think."

Churchley said phone exchanges followed between his mother and the other men, but he wasn't involved, he didn't ask what was going on and he didn't leave the flat when the others did but stayed there with Ms Nelmes.

He said: "They were gone about 10 to 20 minutes. I think my brother (Paddy) went with his girlfriend and then came back, and then Jason and Craig came back. They seemed all right at first but after a while they appeared a bit weird, a bit panicky."

Churchley said later that night he, Paddy, Jason and Craig went to his uncle's flat in Redcliffe.

He said: "My girlfriend came round to see me and I learned what happened at The Park House. I learned someone had died, I think I heard it on the news.

"Jason, Craig and Paddy were acting a bit weird and paranoid. I felt a bit worried, really, my brother was in trouble."

Churchley told the jury he bought four new mobile phones to enable him and the others to keep in touch.

He said the reason why his blood was found in a Vauxhall Astra Estate said to have taken the attackers to and from the scene was because the car was his and he had previously bled inside it from cutting himself with a kitchen knife.

He admitted that, initially, he lied to police about his whereabouts on the day of the attack, and he had been advised not to answer any questions.

Diane and Liam Churchley, as well as Craig Hartrey, have declined to enter the witness box and evidence in the trial has now concluded. Barristers will now give their closing speeches before The Honourable Mr Justice Field sums up the case to the jury.

The case continues at Bristol Crown Court.