A man accused of the murder of two men showed his girlfriend two firearms in the days before the killings, the Supreme Court heard.

Christoph Duerr, 26, from Sandys, and Le-Veck Roberts, 21, from Warwick, are charged with the premeditated murders of Ricco Furbert and Haile Outerbridge, who were shot dead inside Belvin’s Variety on the evening of January 23, 2013.

Mr Roberts is also charged with attempting to kill Zico Majors on January 16, 2013, in the Khyber Heights area of Warwick; taking a vehicle without consent on the same day; and taking a vehicle without lawful authority on the day of the murders.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Roberts was the gunman in both shootings, while Mr Duerr stored and supplied the weapon used.

As the trial continued yesterday, the court heard from a former girlfriend of Mr Duerr, who testified that he had shown her two firearms — one large and silver and the second smaller and black — hidden under his mattress some time before the shooting. During the incident, she said Mr Duerr “opened the barrel” of the silver gun. She saw it was loaded and she began to panic, causing him to put the guns back.

About three weeks later, on January 28, 2013, she was again at Mr Duerr’s home, texting a friend while he slept. She told the friend — a police officer — about the incident.

She said Mr Duerr got up to go to the bathroom and when he did, she lifted the mattress and took two pictures of the weapons on her phone, sending them to her friend. She returned the guns before Mr Duerr came back and went back to sleep.

Some time later, Mr Duerr’s sister came into the room, saying that Police were surrounding the building.

The witness said Mr Duerr got up, pulled the firearms from under the mattress and climbed into the attic using retractable stairs. He came down and went back up while on the phone with someone she referred to as “Mono”.

Eventually, Mr Duerr came downstairs again and, after arguing with his sister, left the house through a sliding door. The witness also left and saw a police car outside.

During cross examination, defence lawyer Larry Mussenden questioned if the witness had seen two guns on the earlier occasion, noting that in her initial statement to Police she only mentioned a single, silver firearm. The witness maintained that she was shown two weapons, and later confirmed that she told her officer friend about both of the firearms in the texts.

The jury heard a written statement from a neighbour of Mr Roberts. She wrote that on the evening of the shooting, she was sweeping when she saw two men pull up on a motorcycle. She said Mr Roberts was the pillion passenger and that upon seeing her, he waved and greeted her.

The rider, described as a thin man in his early twenties, said nothing and pulled down his visor to cover his face after noticing her presence.

She said the motorcycle was the one that she had always seen Mr Roberts riding, and thought it was strange that he had been on the back. She noticed that a light outside the house was off, and yelled at Mr Roberts to fix it. She explained that Mr Roberts had on past occasions unscrewed the light bulb to leave the area dark, and she was unable to put the light bulb back without using a chair or ladder. Mr Roberts subsequently fixed the light. At that point, she looked at the cable box and noticed that it was 9.43pm.

The witness also wrote that she was afraid of the repercussions of making the statement to Police.

Pc Gina Jones took the stand, describing Mr Roberts’s arrest on January 25. She said that at about 5.15pm that day, she and her partner attended a property on Bellview Road in Warwick after receiving a report that a bike, taken from the Curving Avenue area on the evening of the murders, was there.

When the officers arrived, they did not find the bike, but they did see several other motorcycles, including one associated with Mr Roberts.

Another officer approached a building on the northern side of the premises and knocked on the door. After no response, the officer opened the unlocked door and discovered Mr Roberts and another man inside.

Pc Jones said she immediately recognised Mr Roberts, saying: “He is related to me. He’s my second cousin.”

She told the court she beckoned him to her and carried out a light search. She noticed he was wearing a ballistic vest beneath his shirt.

“I said to him, ‘I see you don’t want to die’,” she said. “He didn’t respond.”

She said she waited for other officers to arrive, saying that she had a firearm and did not want to risk cross-contaminating the scene.

Pc Jones told the court that before the incident, she had last had firearms training in October 2012. At that time, she said officers did not wear ballistic vests during training.

Under cross examination, she said she would leave the vest in her car while undergoing training and accepted that the handcuffs she used to detain Mr Roberts were kept in the vest.

The court later heard that the bike taken from Curving Avenue was found on January 28 on the Harbour Road side of Tribe Road No 6 in Warwick and it was forensically examined. The trial continues.