A man accused of a brutal double murder in Shropshire phoned a friend and said “I have killed two people, what should I do?”, Stafford Crown court has heard.

Sukhdev Singh contacted Baldev Singh Brar at 3.40am on December 7, after he is alleged to have murdered 30-year-old

Jaswant Singh

and 31-year-old Kulwant Singh at a flat above the Shawbury Fish Bar, Shawbury, the court heard.

Sukhdev Singh denies two charges of murder.

Mr Brar claimed not to remember much of the three-and-a-half minute conversation, when he appeared at Stafford Crown Court yesterday.

He denied telling the 26-year-old defendant that he should cover up the crime and said he had been “scared”.

He said: “He said to me I have killed two people, what should I do?”

When asked if he had ever been told by Singh that he was being bullied and made very unhappy at work, he replied through an interpreter: “People living in this country illegally are always experiencing that.”

Gurpreet Singh Suraj, whose parents own the Shawbury Fish Bar and the Indian Village takeaway next door, told the court Sukhdev Singh came to work there two or three years before the incident.

He said Singh, known as Shera, and Jaswant Singh, known as Jim, had worked together in the fish bar 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The pair also lived together in the flat upstairs where Jaswant Singh and Kulwant Singh died.

Of Sukhdev Singh, Mr Suraj said: “He didn’t really speak that much, he was very quiet. He was quite pleasant though, quite respectful as well. He was hard-working.”

Kulwant Singh

Mr Suraj said Kulwant Singh, known as John, worked at the Moston Road Fish Bar in Shrewsbury, which used to be owned by his father.

He said he had not seen Jaswant Singh mistreating Sukhdev Singh, and he had not complained of being mistreated and did not appear unhappy.

Jurors were also told yesterday that Sukhdev Singh approached Phillip McCormack carrying a “full” looking bag and asked for directions to a taxi rank the morning after the double murder.

The trial continues.