A man accused of murdering 18-year-old Jason Lightbourne suggested to a friend that he had been involved in the shooting, according to a witness.

Prince Barrington Edness, 28, has denied the premeditated murder of Mr Lightbourne, who was shot dead while driving along Ord Road on July 23, 2006. According to the charge before the courts, Mr Edness is accused of working with Akil Williams and others to carry out the early morning attack.

Prosecutors have alleged the shooting was a retaliation attack, sparked by a stabbing which occurred earlier that evening and fuelled by a rivalry between a Hamilton gang and a rival group in the Ord Road area.

Earlier this week the court heard from a witness who claimed Mr Williams confessed that he was the man who pulled the trigger in the attack. She also told the court that Mr Williams was brutally beaten with a metal weight three weeks after the shooting because he still had the firearm. Mr Williams was found dead the following day.

As the trial continued yesterday, another witness told the court that he spoke to both Mr Edness and Mr Williams days after the shooting, and they suggested that they had been involved.

The witness, who cannot be identified due to a reporting restriction, said he had known both men well, and spoke with them on a regular basis.

He told the court that he was aware of both men being arrested several days after the shooting, and that he saw the pair shortly after they were released from custody. At that time, he said Mr Edness asked him about getting his bike out of police impound.

“I asked them if they were cool and was everything OK,” the witness said. “They said: ‘Everything is cool. They ain’t got nothing on us. They ain’t got f***s on us’.”

He further said the men told him that they had “taken care of that,” which he took to mean that the pair had been involved in the Ord Road shooting.

The witness said: “That meant to me: ‘I went country, I sorted that s*** out. I went up the country and I got a little revenge. They came town and f***ed around, we went country and got even and a little bit more.”

However in cross-examination, defence lawyer Marc Daniels suggested that his interpretation may have been wrong, noting that neither Mr Edness nor Mr Williams expressly stated that Mr Edness had been involved or detailed his involvement. He also suggested that the witness never spoke to Mr Edness at all about the incident.

The witness accepted that he may have spoken to Mr Edness and Mr Williams separately rather than together, but insisted that both men had made such statements to him. He also accepted that he had been a drug addict at the time of the incident, and has since been moved overseas after giving evidence in another trial.

Also taking the stand yesterday was gunshot residue expert Alison Murtha, who told the court that she tested samples taken from Mr Edness’ hands five days after the shooting.

She explained that when a firearm discharges, it releases particles of lead, barium and antimony, which fuse under the high heat. True GSR, containing all three elements, can only be formed by the discharge of a firearm, while other combinations of the same elements can come from other sources.

In the case of Mr Edness’ hands, she said she discovered all three component particles, but not fused together. As a result, she said the particles could have come from a firearm or another source.