REECE James was shot dead at point blank range in his Boscombe flat in a planned killing, a court heard yesterday.

The 21-year-old, known as Style, was shot in the cheek with a short barrel sawn-off shotgun in the lounge of the flat in Sea Road/Roumelia Lane in the early hours of July 25 last year.

Wayne Stephenson, 34, Keifer Hutchinson, 23, Jarome Parkinson, 25, Kieron Wellington, 30, and Miss Terri Campbell, 23, deny murdering Mr James.

Opening the prosecution case, Timothy Mousley QC told Winchester Crown Court that Mr James died “virtually instantaneously” when the pellet travelled through his upper jaw, the base of his skull and his brain.

Police were called to the flat at 2.29am by friend Tyrone Downer, who said he was woken by the sound of a gunshot before finding Mr James slumped against a wall.

Mr Mousley told the court that police identified a silver Audi A3 car from CCTV which had been registered and insured in April last year in Stephenson’s name.

He said the car had been caught on CCTV and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras travelling from London to Boscombe on the early morning of the killing.

The court was also shown extracts of CCTV footage taken from the area of Sea Road in Boscombe which, the prosecution claims, show Hutchinson, Parkinson and Stephenson walking outside the entrance to the flat.

He said at 2.18am the three defendants could be seen to go into the flat before emerging one minute later and running from the flat and into Sea Road at “speed”.

The jury were told that the return journey to London was also captured on ANPR cameras and that the car was not spotted on any cameras between July 26 and September 4.

Mr Mousley said the jury would hear evidence that phone calls and messages were exchanged between Stephenson, Parkinson and Hutchinson in the Audi car and Wellington and Campbell who were in Bournemouth.

The court heard that police found various illegal drugs and paraphernalia during a search of the flat at 17 Sea Road.

Mr Mousley told the court that one reason for the killing could be “jealously and infidelity” in connection with pictures found on a mobile phone at Campbell and Wellington’s flat. One showed Campbell arm in arm with David Aston – one of Mr James’s friends – when Wellington was on holiday in May last year.

Wellington and Campbell had been in a relationship since around April that year.

Mr Mousley said David Aston had later told police he had slept with Campbell on about three occasions.

The court heard that Stephenson, Parkinson and Hutchinson were arrested on August 21 and Wellington and Campbell the following month.

Mr Mousley QC told the jury: “All five defendants are charged with murder. It's the last three – Hutchinson, Stephenson and Parkinson – who actually carried out the killing. But we say that all five defendants are guilty of murder because effectively there was a plan between them all.

“This was a planned killing of Reece James and each one of these defendants was involved in that plan in different ways.”

Stephenson, of Byron Court, Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London; Hutchinson, of Manaton Close, Peckham, London; Parkinson, of St Mary’s Terrace, Dover Road, Folkstone in Kent; Wellington and Campbell, of Westcliff Studios, Durley Gardens, Bournemouth, deny the charge.

The trial continues.