JURORS in a gangland-style murder have been shown CCTV footage of some of the accused checking out the area the day before their alleged target was shot in the head.

Hemwand Ali Hussain was discovered dead in a a terraced house on Charterhouse Street, Hartlepool, after being blasted to the head with a sawn-off shotgun on September 14, 2019.

Leanne Hodgson, an intelligence analyst for Cleveland Police, took the jurors through a digital timeline of the movements and whereabouts of the gang accused of being behind the slaying.

She talked the court through the detailed analysis of mobile phone records, CCTV and automatic number plate recognition data which the prosecution says connects the four men to the murder.

Anxelo Xhaferi, Noza Saffari, Dorian Pirija and Qazim Marku were charged with his murder and their trial at Teesside Crown Court got underway last week.

Miss Hodgson's evidence showed several members of the gang, some of whom have never been caught, carrying out a reconnaissance of the property the day before.

Some of their mobile phones and vehicles were pinpointed to the streets of Hartlepool while efforts were made to contact father-of-two Mr Hussain.

Earlier, the jury heard from a man who was paid £150 to get a copy of the keys for the house where the 30-year-old was killed.

Faisal Azam, who is not implicated in the murder, is expected to be cross-examined by the defendants' barristers on Friday morning following unexpected delays in the trial's progress.

Prosecution barrister, Francis Fitzgibbon QC told jurors that it was the prosecution case that the gang had chosen the address to lure the known cannabis farm operator to his death.

Xhaferi, 24, of Acton Street, Middlesbrough; Saffari, 39, of Park Lane, Middlesbrough; 33-year-old Pirija, of Trillo Avenue, Bolton; and Qazim Marku, 24, of West Drayton, all deny murder.

The trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, continues.