Jury hears pet parrot 'spooked by loud noise' next to Hartlepool house where drug dealer shot dead

David Walker, of Charterhouse Street, Hartlepool, called police after seeing the body of Hamawand Ali Hussain through the window of a derelict house next door on September 15 in 2019.

Teesside Crown Court has been told Mr Hussain, said to have been a cannabis dealer, had been shot at point blank range with a sawn-off shotgun and killed.

Mr Walker, who is partially deaf, told police the previous evening his parrot was startled by something.

He told the officers: “The parrot flew off her cage, something must have frightened her and she landed on the couch.

"The only time she flies off the cage is if she hears a big bang or something which I didn’t hear.

"That’s what was unusual about it, the way it spooked her. She just took off.”

A video of Mr Walker’s interview was played to a jury at Teesside Crown Court on Thursday where four men are on trial for Mr Hussain’s murder.

Mr Walker said he went to the front door and saw three men run out of the house followed by another man.

He said a fifth man was standing by a vehicle in the street.

Mr Walker said the first three men ran up the street towards a Premier store before the other two men followed in the same direction.

He said he glimpsed a man lying on the floor through a break in the blind of the front window.

The following morning, on the way to a friend’s, Mr Walker said the man appeared to be laid in a different position.

Mr Walker said: “I said ‘I’m worried about whoever it is next door’. I said ‘I’m sorry I’m going to have to go’ because I’m sure that looked like blood but I couldn’t be certain.

"That’s when I phoned the 999.”

The four men who deny murder are Noza Saffari, 39, of Park Lane, Middlesbrough, who is Iranian of Kurdish origin; and Albanians Anxhelo Xhaferi, 24, of Acton Street, Middlesbrough; Dorian Pirija, 33, of Trillo Avenue, Bolton; and Qazim Marku, 24, of Maxwell Road, West Drayton, London.

The trial continues.

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