SUSPECTS in the kidnap and murder of an East Lancashire housing manager tried to flee the country within days of the father-of-four's disappearance, a court heard yesterday.

Daniel Jones, 28, fled his home in New Mansion House Cottages, Bacup, and moved to Spain just days after the abduction of 43-year-old Paul Brady, it was alleged at Preston Crown Court.

Mr Brady, from Rochdale, was snatched from an exclusive housing estate at Lynn's Court, Weir, by a 10 to 15 strong balaclava-clad gang and has never been seen since.

Prosecutors at Preston Crown Court say that the gang, who struck in Beaufort Road, Weir, armed with a shotgun and baseball bats, included Jones and Michael Dunphy, 39, of Greenside, Farnworth, near Bolton.

Richard Marks QC, prosecuting, said Mr Brady may have been targetted because he had recently taken delivery of a cocaine hail with an estimated street value of £300,000.

Earlier this year Paul Devalda, from Burnley Road, Padiham, was convicted of Mr Brady's kidnap and murder following a Liverpool Crown Court trial and is currently serving a life sentence.

Mr Marks said that Mr Brady was lured to the estate, off Beaufort Road, when vandals set off a 'Fire Breathing Dragon' industrial-sized firework, inside a partially-completed home withing the gated complex, on July 31, 2009.

CCTV footage from a house on Beaufort Road showed a gold-coloured Ford Galaxy arriving and leaving the scene twice on that night.

The prosecution alleges that Jones had driven that same car from Rossendale to Wakefield, West Yorkshire, just three days before the kidnapping.

The vehicle was captured by an M62 motorway camera at Milnrow, near Rochdale.

Mr Marks said that a number of mobile phone calls made between Jones and Devalda, at the time of that journey, could be linked with points along that particular route.

Mr Brady's attackers pounced the following day, August 1, when he arrived to carry out repairs to the damaged house with a workman, David Collier.

An eyewitness saw the tail-end of the incident, with Mr Brady being bundled into a waiting Citroen Berlingo.

The court heard Dunphy and Devalda allegedly fled the north-west shortly after Mr Brady's disappearance.

Dunphy and Devalda eventually made it to London, the court heard, and booked into the £250-a-night No. 5 Cavendish Square Hotel.

But police had been keeping them under surveillance and Devalda was arrested in a phone box near the hotel.

Detectives later detained Dunphy at the hotel and found two passports - one in his own name and the other in the name of Darryl Beech.

He was quizzed about the case at Blackburn's Greenbank police station but refused to answer any questions and was bailed for four weeks for further enquiries to be made.

But he is alleged to have gone on the run and was only arrested in Manchester on April 4 this year.

Jones was arrested in Spain and extradited to the UK to face charges last December.

Mr Marks said that mobile phone evidence would also link the main parties said to be involved in the kidnapping and murder of Mr Brady.

"In a nutshell the prosecution says that, particularly on July 31 and August 31, the dates with which you are concerned, there was a very large amount of telephone contact between Paul Devalda, Michael Dunphy, Daniel Jones and Jason Martin," said Mr Marks.

Martin, whose DNA was found on a balaclava found at the kidnap scene, was killed in Dublin in September 2009, in an unrelated incident.

Dunphy and Jones deny murder, an alternative charge of manslaughter and conspiracy to kidnap Mr Brady.

The trial continues.

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