A LORRY driver murdered his former boss and attempted to kill his three co-workers in a ruthless and callous attack, a prosecutor told Newport Crown Court yesterday.

During closing statements in the trial of Russell Carter, David Aubrey QC, prosecuting, told the court Carter knew precisely what he was doing when he went to the Driverline 247 premises, in Pontypool, and carried out his actions with ruthless callousness.

Mr Aubrey said Carter, 52, was thinking clearly at the time of the incident on October 20 last year, throttling Kingsley Monk and leaving co-workers Gethin Heal, Robert Lewis and Nathan Taylor bound and gagged to die in the burning offices. He added that in a bid to cover his tracks Carter disposed of the blood stained clothing he was wearing and a hand gun he used to threaten the men, which police have never found.

Mr Aubrey said the account Carter gave police at interview was filled with lies and deceit and added there was no evidence of a psychological condition during his adult life as suggested by defence psychiatrist Dr Sukhinder Shergill.

Summing up for the defence Patrick Harrington QC, said there was no dispute about the killing of Mr Monk but invited the jury to find Carter guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to an abnormality of mind Carter suffered as a result of a psychological condition.

Mr Harrington told jurors Carter was scarred by his childhood where he spent four years in a psychiatric hospital and had developed a sociopathic condition.

He said the jury should look as the incident as a robbery gone wrong and maintained Carter, who was in extreme financial difficulty, told his three colleagues he would not hurt them if they did what they were told.

Mr Harrington also asked the jury to consider why, if Carter meant to kill the three men, did he not use the gun.

Jurors previously heard Carter bound and gagged the men at gunpoint during a four-hour ordeal after going to the offices to get money he thought he was owed.

Carter, of Penrhos Crescent, Rumney, Cardiff, denies murdering Mr Monk, from Oakdale, and attempting to murder co-workers Gethin Heal, Robert Lewis and Nathan Taylor.

Proceeding