Gang war victim Qadir Ahmed died from skull and brain damage from a blow to the head with an axe, a Court was told yesterday.

A forensic pathologist also found injuries inflicted with a knife or sharp bladed weapon and other wounds consistent with blows from a baton-shaped object like a club.

Prosecutor Jennifer Kershaw QC told the jury at Leeds Crown Court that 24-year-old Mr Ahmed, of Gordon Street, Keighley, had also suffered abrasions consistent with being struck by a car.

Seven men, from Keighley and Bradford, all plead not guilty to conspiracy to murder Mr Ahmed, who was killed at 11pm on February 13 last year at the B&Q roundabout in Keighley.

Mrs Kershaw has told the court that the victim, who was planning to marry, was beaten and hacked to death by a gang of armed men who ambushed him as he drove off from Keighley Leisure Centre after playing football.

One of the cars used by the gang was later found burned out and the other was recovered abandoned in a street.

Mrs Kershaw told the jury that the burned out car was set alight by one of the defendants, Mohammed Rafiq who turned up in the early hours of the following morning at two hospitals in Preston and Burnley with flash burn injuries.

She said Rafiq told four different stories to staff at the hospitals about how he got his injuries.

Mrs Kershaw said a convoy of cars left the leisure centre and a number of people had witnessed Mr Ahmed's car being attacked.

They said his car had been rammed twice and shunted across the road so it ended up on the wrong side facing traffic.

Mrs Kershaw claimed the seven defendants had plotted to kill security guard Mr Ahmed, who had served a prison sentence for supplying class A drugs and was still involved in the trade, for reasons which probably arose out of gang rivalry in Keighley.

The seven accused are: Zulfiqar Asif, 23, of Bradford Road; Amjad Ali Azam, 21, of Surrey Street; Parveez Ashraf, 26, of Victoria Park View; Zahir Bashir, 27, of Emily Street; Mohammed Rafiq, 21, of Chatsworth Street; Atif Younis, 22, of Lawkholme Lane, all Keighley; and Mohammed Iqbal, 24, of Salt Street, Manningham, Bradford. Zulfiqar also pleads not guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mudassar Iqbal.

The trial, expected to last eight weeks, continues next week.