A MAN who was brought back to the North-East more than a decade after a drugs-related contract killing has gone on trial for his alleged part in the £5,000 murder plot.

Andrew Monarch left the UK and lived on a false passport after 22-year-old Mark Sayer was shot dead on the doorstep of his home near Redcar, east Cleveland, in 1996.

Mr Monarch was finally extradited from Spain last year, after being arrested in October 2005 by Spanish authorities on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Mr Sayer.

It is alleged that Mr Monarch, now 35, helped hide the gunman and the getaway driver following the assassination and paid them the following day for the "job".

Teesside Crown Court was told yesterday that the killing was organised by Middlesbrough drug dealer Zarin Sherrif, after his supplies of cannabis were stolen in a burglary at a safe house.

Gunman Karl Henderson and driver Edward Winter, both from Blyth, Northumberland, were recruited and were said to have been given a gun and getaway car by Joseph Marshall, from nearby Amble.

Franz Muller, prosecuting, told a jury that "a contract note" found after Marshall's arrest referred to "£5k for the job" and "no tools necessary" - meaning a gun would be supplied.

The jury heard that Mr Sayer, 22, was shot twice in the chest after answering the door at his home in Staithes Road, Dormanstown, on the evening of September 1.

Mr Muller said the killer and the driver dumped the weapon - a Winchester pump-action shotgun - near the A66 as they fled north, and abandoned their car in Stockton.

Mr Monarch, who lived in Whorlton Grove, Redcar, at the time and was a friend of Sherrif's, is suspected of picking the pair up and taking them to a Middlesbrough hotel for the night.

Phone and pager records are said to show contact between Mr Monarch and Sherrif immediately after the murder.

Mr Muller said Mr Monarch received several pager messages from Henderson and Winter's hotel room the following morning - one expressing "a certain amount of pleasure at what had been achieved".

He told the jury that Winter was arrested the following day and showed police where the weapon was, Henderson was found in Berkshire five days after that, and Sherrif a further three days later.

Mr Monarch was traced in Spain, where he had been living with a girlfriend whom he had told he was wanted by the police and could not return home, Mr Muller said.

After being arrested, Mr Monarch replied: "I do not have a clue what you are talking about. I've had nothing whatever to do with any murder at any time in my life."

Mr Monarch denies conspiracy to murder. The trial - scheduled to last a fortnight - continues today.