A man who survived the shooting that killed Aquil Richardson has told how a black-clad gunman opened fire and wounded him in the leg.

Lavar Smith was giving evidence yesterday in the trial of the pair jointly accused of the attack, Antoine Herbert Anderson, 31, and Philip Anthony Bradshaw, 26.

Mr. Smith, who was 25 at the time of the incident on Boxing Day 2007, was with Mr. Richardson and several other men in the yard of a house in Camp Hill, Southampton.

He described how two men wearing full-face helmets and black clothing rode up on a motorcycle, and stopped 10-12 feet from the group. He alleged that the pillion passenger raised a gun and shot him twice in the right leg.

"I saw sparks and I heard a loud noise. They came from a gun. I just saw sparks, like I said. That's when I realised I had been shot," Mr. Smith, from Warwick, told the jury at Supreme Court.

He described the sound as "a loud thundering noise" and the men on the bike as "a big person on the front and a small person on the back". He told the court that he ran away to the back of the yard where he saw the others he'd been with apart from 30-year-old Mr. Richardson.

"I realised that I was shot, I was bleeding a lot and I couldn't really walk," he recalled.

After the bike left the scene Mr. Smith who had been shot in the upper and lower parts of his right leg was taken to the hospital in a car. As he left the premises, he described seeing Mr. Richardson lying on the ground on his back, apparently dead.

According to the prosecution case against Bradshaw and Anderson, as outlined by Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney yesterday, one of the riders had walked up to Mr. Richardson while he was on the ground and shot him twice in the head.

Mr. Smith spent three days in hospital recovering, and gave the Police two statements about what happened, the first on December 28 2007 and the second on March 3 2008.

Questioned by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Michael McColm yesterday, Mr. Smith was unable to describe the motorcycle. However he agreed with Anesta Weekes QC, representing Bradshaw, that he described the vehicle as a white "Wave-brand automatic" in his first Police statement.

Mr. Smith further agreed with Ms Weekes that the whole incident was over in a matter of seconds, and he'd made no reference to the physical build of the motorcyclists in either of his statements.

When she suggested to him that his evidence yesterday about the build of the culprits was "a bit of a guess," Mr. Smith replied that it was the first time he'd been asked that question.

Bradshaw and Anderson deny murdering Mr. Richardson and wounding Mr. Smith with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and the case continues.