Written death threats allegedly received by murder suspect Julian Felisi in the weeks after Watford bin man Gary Bennett's death were “thrown away” by the defendant, a court heard today.

Felisi told the jury, at St Albans Crown Court, he received “three or four” written notes from the two men he claims killed the popular 46-year-old.

The court heard he threw the notes away because “he did not want to get into stuff or be implicated in Gary Bennett's murder”.

Prosecuting barrister Mr Speak said: “It never crossed your mind that the simple task of keeping the notes would stop you being implicated? The truth is they never existed because there was no-one to write them since there was never two Irishmen was there? This is an outright lie isn't it?”

Felisi denied he was lying. The court also heard that, after Felisi returned to his car having seen Mr Bennett on the floor, he felt blood on his finger tips.

He told the court he did not wash this off until he returned home from work that afternoon. Mr Speak said: “What about when you went over and found Mr Bennett lying on the floor as is your testimony? Did you ask him if he could hear you? Did you ask the two men what happened?”

Felisi told the court he didn't say anything as he “was in a state of shock” and “was not going to ask questions” when one of the Irishmen allegedly held a knife into his side.

The court earlier heard Felisi threw away a pair of boots he claims he wore to the park that morning.

Mr Speak said: “We heard about the blood spatter and it is very likely you had a lot of blood on your shoes didn't you Mr Felisi? With all the crevices, laces and eye holes in the shoes I'm guessing you realised there was no way you could get them clean so you got rid of them didn't you?”

Felisi again denied this. The court heard Felisi, after dropping one of the Irishmen off near Bushey as he claims, then rang the driver of his lorry at work to tell him he was going to be a few minutes late.

He told the court this was perhaps not the most important thing to do but he was “acting on impulse”.

It was at this point he claims, after dropping one of the two men off, he “must have” put his high visibility jacket back on.

He is shown on CCTV footage arriving at work in the jacket but denies he was wearing it when he entered the park and that he is not one of the men seen walking through the kissing gate in a high visibility top.

Earlier Felisi, in response to questioning from Mr Speak, claimed he had no idea what the names of the two men were.

He added that at no point had they used his name or could he hear what they were talking with Mr Bennett about when they were in his car because he “had the window down and the radio on”.

Mr Speak pointed out that, in Felisi's testimony, he claims he picked up Mr Bennett and met the two men “60 or 70 yards down the road” from the victim's house.

He also pointed out Felisi told the court he noticed a vehicle which appeared to be theirs.

He said he did not know why Mr Bennett could not have walked that distance himself to meet the men, just that he was “doing as he was told”.

Mr Speak asked Felisi about what happened after the murder. He asked why he thought one of the accomplices disappeared into the park and the other forced him to drop him off miles away from what Felisi claimed was their vehicle.

Felisi said he didn't know what the man was planning and “didn't ask any questions”.

Mr Speak said: “So you were in a position, at 6am on February 24, where you could identify two murderers and you knew exactly where their vehicle was parked? So why did you not anonymously pass that information on to the police?”

Felisi replied that “nothing is anonymous these days” and he “feared for the safety of his children, girlfriend and family”.

He added: “I wasn't in a position to give information until I knew my children and family were safe and someone had been arrested.”

Mr Speak said: “The reason you find yourself in that situation is because you of course are the murderer and there are no men out there at all are there? It was you wasn't it Mr Felisi?”

Felisi denied this. The court is due to reconvene at 2.30pm on Monday.