Welsh accused 'too tanned' for identity parade, court hears

Bradley Welsh was shot outside his Edinburgh home two years ago

A man accused of murdering a T2 Trainspotting actor objected to an identity parade because he appeared too tanned, a court has heard.

Sean Orman is accused of shooting Bradley Welsh outside his flat in the west end of Edinburgh on 17 April 2019.

The 30-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges against him.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard how police rejected complaints by Mr Orman and his solicitor about a video identification parade process.

Both men argued images taken for the purposes of two identity parades, held within three weeks of Mr Orman's arrest, showed the 30-year-old with too dark a complexion compared with the others taking part.

A forensic team near the scene of the shooting

The court heard Mr Orman's solicitor argued this was "significant when there have been reports in the media of a tanned suspect".

The police noted the concerns but ruled that images of the other participants were fair in terms of appearances.

A joint minute shows that Mr Orman attended Indigo Sun tanning salon in Edinburgh nine times between 9 March 2019 and 12 April that year.

Kinder Egg

Earlier in the day, the court had heard from a PC Rafal Kaminski who was tasked with watching Mr Orman in his cell at St Leonard's Police Station in Edinburgh.

He told jurors: "He was on his knees. He was being held. He spat out what looked like a Kinder Egg from his mouth. It landed on the floor.

"He said something like 'I thought it was vallies but it is kit.'"

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The court heard that "vallies" is slang for Valium and "kit" is another term for heroin. Jurors were told that the Kinder Egg contained 7.27g of heroin which the police said would have cost about £1,000 to buy.

The court later heard that it was possible the same type of gun used to kill Mr Welsh was fired at a property in the Duddingston area of Edinburgh

Ballistics expert Martin Connolly said examinations of discharged ammunition found in a flat and during Mr Welsh's post-mortem examination showed they were "indistinguishable".

Police near the scene of the shooting

Last week, jurors in the case heard evidence from Dean White who told jurors he witnessed Mr Orman shoot a shotgun into the floor of his brother's home in Duddingston Row.

The court also heard that cartridges found at a property in Hawkhill Close, in another part of the city, were similar to those fired at Mr Welsh and in the flat.

Mr Connolly, who works for the Scottish Police Authority, said a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun recovered by police and shown to the court was manufactured in Belgium between the 1890s and 1960s.

The shotgun had been recovered from a shed at a location in Lanarkshire in June 2020 and only one of the barrels could be used, which Mr Connolly said was probably due to its age. The barrels had also been shortened which Mr Connolly said would be so the weapon could be concealed.

The 15 charges Mr Orman faces - and denies - include attempted murder, firearms and drugs offences.

Other charges include driving at speeds up to 123mph on the Edinburgh bypass, failing to stop for uniformed police officers and driving on the opposing side of the carriageway "in excess of 92mph", where the limit is 30mph.

The trial, before judge Lord Beckett, continues.