A NELSON businessman yesterday denied plotting to supply £25,000 worth of heroin to an alleged Merseyside drug dealer at a deserted industrial estate in Lancashire.

Furniture wholesaler Abid Hussain told a Liverpool Crown Court jury that he had not handed over a package containing more than half a kilo of the drug to the rider of a motorcycle.

The court heard the motorcyclist travelled north that evening from Liverpool in convoy with a car carrying two men, including the man claimed to be behind the deal, Edward Gray.

Questioned by his barrister, Graham Morrow, QC, 30-year-old Hussain said he did not see anything handed over to John Prendergast on the Billington Road estate in Nelson and had not had an involvement in making an agreement with anybody to supply heroin.

Hussain, of Reedyford Road, Nelson, denies conspiring with Gray. Prendergast, 42, of Hannan Road, Kensington; John O'Brien, 36, of Merecliff, Stockbridge Village, Liverpool; Paul Russell, 45, and his stepson, Simon Smart, 21, both of Parklands, Cronton, Widnes, and with other unknown to supply heroin. Gray, 38, of Honey's Green Lane, West Derby, also denies plotting with Raymond Hughes, Stephen O'Toole, Geoffrey Kaye, Simon Kamper and others unknown to supply ecstasy.

Gray denies orchestrating a conspiracy to supply £2.5million worth of heroin and ecstasy, including the alleged deal with Hussain, two importations of ecstasy and one of heroin.

Hussain said there had been no arrangement to meet Gray on August 18, 1999, but Gray had rung him on his mobile phone to say he was in the area en route to Leeds.

He said he was asked by Gray to direct Prendergast to the industrial estate because he was meeting someone about a white Peugeot and so drove there with the motorcycle following him while Gray went to McDonalds.

Hussain said that he parked up on the right of the Peugeot in Billington Road and the old police BMW bike parked next to him. He was walking across to enquire about a computer at a nearby unit when he realised the bike was on the ground.

He said he asked Prendergast: "What the hell's going on?" and helped him pick up the motorcycle, but also recognised the driver of the Peugeot, whom he said was a member of a drug dealing family in Nelson and was not prepared to identify.

Back at McDonalds he was annoyed and spoke to Gray and warned him that he did not know what was going on but that the man he as doing a favour for, Prendergast, had been meting a drug dealing family in nelson, he claimed.

(Proceeding)