Latest on Denby Dale man Thomas Haigh's trial: Murder victims entombed in burned-out van

A JURY heard how police excavated the charred remains of two drug dealers entombed in a burnt-out van in a pit at a farm in Cornwall.

David Griffiths, 35, from Plymouth, and Brett Flournoy, 31, were blasted with a shotgun and loaded into a white Citroen Berlingo van at Sunny Corner, Trenance Downs, near St Austell.

And one of the men alleged to have murdered them was Thomas Haigh, of Denby Dale.

Truro Crown Court was told the vehicle, which Flournoy had been driving, was pushed into a 4 metres deep (7ft 10in) pit before everything was set on fire and covered over with earth.

Haigh, 26, and Ross Stone, 26, are jointly charged with the double slaying on June 16 last year and deny the allegations.

Stone, who lived at Sunny Corner and worked as a roofer and used a digger, admits disposing of the bodies.

Flournoy was from Merseyside while at the time of his death Griffiths was living in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Prosecutors argue the men were pressurising Haigh to smuggle drugs into the UK from Brazil and Stone was being threatened to repay a £30,000 drug debt.

It is said they sent Haigh to keep watch on Stone and the two men became friends before joining forces to murder the men.

Flournoy and Griffiths were missing for a month before their remains were dug up on July 14.

Yesterday in a statement read out to the court, Martin Bennetto, a police archaeologist, said after the van was recovered it was taken to RAF St Mawgan, near Newquay for examination.

He said the bodies were in the back of the van and there was no sign of the shotgun used to kill the men.

Nicholas Grant, a forensic anthropologist and archeologist, told the court the men were face-down in the vehicle.

He said: “The roof of the van had been peeled back so earth could be dropped in”.

On the morning of June 17 Haigh had bought a ticket at St Austell railway station and travelled to Leeds.

Yesterday Darren Childs, who works at the station said Haigh arrived an hour before the train was due to leave at 9.20am.

He said Haigh was carrying a black holdall and asked him and another member of staff three or four times each when his train was leaving.

Mr Childs said he thought Haigh had learning difficulties. He said: “He seemed very, very nervous. He made me apprehensive about the way he was behaving.”

The trial continues.