A professional footballer accused of shooting a man dead in the street has been framed by a convicted murderer desperate to get his sentence cut, the Old Bailey heard.

Gavin Grant, 26, is said to have gunned down 21-year-old Leon Labastide on the Stonebridge Estate in northwest London in May 2004.

He went on to play for Millwall, Gillingham, Wycombe Wanderers and Bradford City before being put on trial for murder.

The prosecution rely on the evidence of a single witness who claimed Grant and his friend Gareth Downie, 25, admitted to shooting Mr Labastide, known as Playboy.

She said the victim was believed to be behind an armed raid on the home of Grant’s friend Romain Whyte which left Whyte’s partner and sister both in hospital.

But Grant’s barrister Nigel Rumfitt QC, making his closing speech to the jury, suggested they would never get a good night’s sleep if they convicted the footballer. He said the Crown were so ‘desperate’ that they spent much of the trial focusing on a bike supposedly used to carry out the murder.

‘‘It speaks volumes about how weak the case really is, about how little real evidence the prosecution has to put to Gravin Grant if that is what the prosecution spend their time on,’’ said Mr Rumfitt.

‘‘There is no suggestion that motorcycles or people in crash helmets had anything to do with this murder.’’ The motorbike was recorded as being in Milton Avenue outside the home of Grant’s friend Damien Williams the morning after the murder.

Two months later Grant was arrested driving it without a licence and gave the false name Jermaine Harrison.

It is claimed he deliberately tried to distance himself from the vehicle as it might be connected to the shooting.

But Mr Rumfitt said: ‘‘Nothing comes anywhere near proving he killed his friend Playboy. How does any of this prove he was a murderer?

‘‘It is just a red herring. It shows how desperate they are.’’ Mr Rumfitt claimed that Grant’s subsequent successful footballing career and wealth ‘aggravated’ a former associate called Darren Mathurin, who was convicted of conspiracy to murder a second man in August 2007 but decided to become a ‘grass’ to secure a lighter sentence, jurors were told.

He gave evidence at a previous trial but was not called at this trial.

Mr Rumfitt added: ‘Desperate Darren, who uses the murder of Playboy to get away with a another murder he was involved in.

‘He was ideally placed to tell police things about Gavin Grant and this murder, ideally placed to tell a story and whose evidence is no longer regarded as worthy of belief.’ Downie, of Markby Road, Birmingham, and Grant, from Kenton, northwest London, deny the murder of Mr Labastide. Damien Williams, then living in Milton Avenue, Harlesden, northwest London, and now living in south London, denies conspiracy to murder Mr Labastide.

The trial continues.