POLICE who stopped two murder suspects trying to flee the North-East to start a new life on the run found thousands of pounds stuffed under a seat in their caravan.

Almost £7,000 was discovered when Robert Chapman and Lee Hay were pulled over at a service station in North Yorkshire shortly after a shooting in Sunderland.

Police believed the cash belonged to Hartlepool man Chapman - either blood money paid to him for a hit that went wrong or the proceeds of other crime - and confiscated it as they arrested him for murder.

But yesterday, Chapman's brother - who owned the caravan - made a legal bid to claim the money, and told a judge he had borrowed it to buy some pigeons.

In a civil hearing at Teesside Crown Court, Graham Chapman claimed he had taken a loan and planned to go to Plymouth with his partner and two children to buy three £1,500 racing birds.

But, after storing the money in the caravan for their planned trip in July 2004, Mr Chapman suffered back spasms, was confined to bed and forgot about the stash.

His brother - gunman in the murder of pensioner Fred Fowler - and his boyfriend Hay called at his home in Eskdale Road and asked to borrow the caravan.

Mr Chapman told Judge Peter Armstrong he was unaware of the couple's involvement in the pub shooting and, although he rarely saw his brother, was happy to lend him his car and caravan.

Police arrested 36-year-old Chapman and 20-year-old Hay at Exelby service station as they headed south on the A1, hours after the botched shooting at the Tap and Barrel.

Chapman was convicted of the murder of Mr Fowler, 72, and the attempted murder of another customer, Michael Nixon, 20 - both innocent bystanders, as the shots were meant for members of a gang called the Hendon Mad Dogs.

He was jailed for life, with a minimum tariff of 27 years, while his lover and get-away driver was locked up for 18 months after he admitted conspiracy to commit affray.

Unemployed Mr Chapman has spent almost three years trying to retrieve the cash from North Yorkshire Police, and vowed to continue his fight after the judge ruled yesterday that it probably belonged to his brother. Judge Armstrong said: "We think it is unlikely - if not inconceivable - that Mr Chapman would have that sort of money in a caravan, forget about it and that it is purely coincidental his brother, who having committed a murder, then borrows the caravan and, lo and behold, finds that money hidden under the seat.

"We make it more likely that this money was, in fact, money belonging to Robert Chapman, either through his criminal conduct or for his involvement in the murder which was to be used in the get-away which would have had to be planned."

Costs of £3,634 were added to earlier costs of £5,500 from a magistrates court hearing, but it is unlikely Mr Chapman - who the court heard is on sickness benefits and whose loans are in the hands of debt recovery agencies - will be able to pay them.

After the hearing, he branded the decision "an injustice" and told the judge, who was sitting with two magistrates: "I'll be back - I'll be appealing again."