An Ipswich delivery driver accused of taking Tavis Spencer-Aitkens’ killers to the scene of the fatal stabbing has told a court he couldn’t be sure if a man with a distinctive ginger beard that he saw on a bike shortly before the attack was one of his co-defendants.

Ipswich Star: Tavis Spencer-Aitkens Picture: SUPPLIED BY FAMILYTavis Spencer-Aitkens Picture: SUPPLIED BY FAMILY (Image: Archant)

Giving evidence at Ipswich Crown Court, Leon Glasgow said that shortly before he stopped his van in Packard Avenue where the attack on Tavis took place he saw two men on bikes in Queens Way.

He said that one of the men had a distinctive ginger beard and was wearing a black hooded top and had cycled across the road in front of his van.

Glasgow said he thought it was the same person he had seen on a bike at Alderman Park earlier in the afternoon when he had picked up the passengers in his van but he couldn’t be “100% sure.”

“He looks like the same person but I can’t swear it was the same person,” he said.

Asked by prosecution counsel Oliver Glasgow QC: “Its Callum Plaats isn’t it?” Glasgow replied: “I don’t know that.”

Asked if he recognised the person sitting in the dock with him as the person he had seen on the bike that day Glasgow replied: “I can’t say if Callum Plaats is the same person.”

He said he heard someone in the van shout out the name “Ish” and thought it might be the name of one of the cyclists but he couldn’t be certain.

Glasgow, 42, of no fixed address, Amusa, 20, of Sovereign Road, Barking, Yenge, 23, of Spring Road, Ipswich, Callum Plaats, 23, of Ipswich, Isaac Calver, 19, of Firmin Close, Ipswich, and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be identified, have denied murdering 17-year-old Tavis in Packard Avenue on June 2.

During his evidence Glasgow gave details of five passengers he claimed were in his van when it went to Packard Avenue.

He said in addition to his co-defendant Aristote Yenge and a man called “M” there were at least three other people in the back of the vehicle.

One of them was his drug supplier Adebayo Amusa and the other two were mixed race youths - one with what he described as “twisted” hair and the other with “big mushroom” hair.

Glasgow said that on the day of Tavis’s death he had been asked by Amusa to take him and “some of his boys to Nacton and back” in return for drugs and cash.

He met Amusa at Alderman Park and said he was asked to drive to Iris Close before going to Packard Avenue.

He said that after leaving Iris Close he was told to head for Nacton and when the van was in Bishops Hill he heard the passengers in the back of the van say: “He’s here.”

Yenge had then said: “No he’s not” and Glasgow was told to drive back down Bishops Hill.

“I thought it was to do with drugs or money,” he said.

Tavis was allegedly attacked because of rivalry between two gangs for what J-Block from the Jubilee Park area of Ipswich perceived to be a loss of respect following a row between the 16-year-old defendant and Yenge and two of Tavis’s friends from the Neno gang from the Nacton area, during a confrontation in Ipswich town centre.

The trial continues.