Drugs threat pair ‘shot and buried’

Two major drug dealers were gunned down and their bodies burned and buried on a remote Cornish farm by two men they were threatening over money they owed them, a court was told.

Brett Flournoy, 31, and David Griffiths, 35, travelled to Cornwall to visit a local man, Ross Stone, who owed them between £30,000 and £40,000 and one of their drug mules, Thomas Haigh, formerly of Huddersfield, who had been sent to “babysit” Stone until he paid up.

But Truro Crown Court heard that when the two men arrived at Stone’s farm near St Austell they were shot dead and buried in their van in an 8ft-deep hole.

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Paul Dunkels QC, prosecuting, said: “Stone had come to owe a substantial drug debt to Flournoy and Griffiths and as a result Stone and his family had been threatened with violence.

“Haigh worked for Flournoy and Griffiths and had also been threatened over drugs debts. Haigh was sent to stay with Stone at Stone’s home in Cornwall because of the drug debt that he owed.”

He said Flournoy and Griffiths travelled to see Stone and Haigh on June 16 last year. Shortly afterwards they were both shot dead.

“Their bodies were put into their vehicle and then their bodies and that vehicle were then burned and buried,” he said.

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Mr Griffiths, a father-of-three living in Berkshire, and Mr Flournoy, a boxer and father-of-two from the Wirral, were later reported missing by their families.

The court was told police made an unrelated drugs raid on the farm two weeks later.

They found two shipping containers that Stone had equipped with drugs equipment and buried underground to evade detection by heat-sensing cameras.

Several days later, Stone admitted to officers the two men were buried on the property and told police where to dig.

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The “unrecognisable” remains of both men were found dumped face-down in the back of the Citroën Berlingo van. Griffiths had been shot in the face and Flournoy shot in the back.

Haigh, 26, and Stone, 28, who is from St Austell, both deny two counts of murder.

The court was told drugs sold to Stone by Flournoy and Griffiths, had been stolen. He was being pressured to pay the money he owed to them anyway although he suspected the two men of carrying out the robbery.

Mr Dunkels told the court Stone’s partner and their child, and his partner’s parents, had been threatened and that on one occasion he claimed Flournoy chased him while brandishing a handgun.

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“They and others had threats made against them, the threats being to shoot him and his family and to burn his house down,” he said.

Haigh was being pressured into making another drug run to Brazil but a friend had been jailed after a similar trip and he did not want to go.

Both dead men were traced to the farm using mobile phone signals.

Flournoy’s phone was last used at 9.06pm and the prosecution claims the men were killed in an 18-minute window after that, before Haigh made a call to a friend who lived nearby.

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Haigh appeared there “sweating and out of breath” and later claimed he had been beaten up by “two men with a bit of wood”.

The next day he bought a one-way rail ticket to Wakefield Westgate. On his way, he sent a text to his father, Peter, saying “Please be there 4pm. I really really need you than ever before dad”.

Construction contractor Stone went to where he was working and collected a mechanical digger that he owned.

“He (Stone) dug a large hole and put the bodies and the van in it,” Mr Dunkels said.

“He set fire to the van and the bodies to destroy as much as he could before he buried them. There was no sign of Brett Flournoy and David Griffiths ever having been at the farm.”

The trial continues.