A man who is alleged to have played a supervisory role when businessman Teddy Simpson was robbed and murdered, went to Bradford that night to buy drugs, a jury was told yesterday.

Anthony Neale is said to have recruited three Leeds men – Decosta Daniel, Errol Witter and Robert Cameron – to carry out the robbery at the detached home of Mr Simpson in Sticker Lane, Laisterdyke, Bradford.

Mr Simpson, 56, was beaten and abducted from his house on August 1, 2007.

His body was found the next morning in Wyke.

The Leeds men were convicted last year of his murder.

Neale, 29, of Nice View, Leeds, and three Bradford men, pleaded not guilty to murder and conspiracy to rob.

Neale told the jury at Bradford Crown Court he had twice been to Bradford to buy cannabis from Sonny Stewart, who gave evidence for the prosecution after offering to plead guilty to manslaughter and conspiracy to rob.

Neale said that on the evening of August 1 he again met Stewart in Bradford after he called to say cannabis had arrived.

He said Stewart told him he had not got the cannabis because something he had done that day had “gone totally wrong”.

He said Stewart used the word ‘move,’ meaning robbery, and said Decosta Daniel was involved. Neale said: “He told me Decosta was stranded and told me to take him back. By this time Decosta started to walk up the road.”

The defendant said he took Daniel, who was a friend, back to Leeds.

Neale said he had no idea a robbery was going to take place that night and denied saying to Stewart in a phone call the same evening that he had heard that one of his boys had been stabbed.

Questioned by prosecutor Tom Bayliss QC, Neale said Stewart had tried to speak to him about a robbery in the days before the attack on Mr Simpson.

Neale said: “Sonny Stewart, on the days he was calling me about the weed (cannabis), asked me did I want to take part in a robbery. I said ‘no, I don’t do those sort of things’.”

He denied suggesting Decosta Daniel, or anybody else, for the robbery.

Johnny Daniels, 35, of Cutler Heights Lane, Bradford. Anthony Davies, 28, of Lloyds Drive, Low Moor, and Darren Martin, 39, of Markfield Avenue, Low Moor, also plead not guilty to murder and conspiracy to rob.

The prosecution alleges Daniels and Davies were the organisers and Davies supervised, while Martin helped and was involved in the violence. All three have declined to give evidence.

The trial continues.