A witness has told a jury how, after stopping to pump up a tyre on his car, he saw a murder suspect open fire on a man in the bushes.

Causwell Robinson said he saw the smoke come off the gun as Wolda Gardner shot the man, and claimed he heard the victim screaming after the shooting.

Mr Gardner, and his co-accused, Patrick Stamp, are accused of murdering Malcolm Augustus on the St George’s Golf Course on Christmas Day 2012.

Yesterday, Mr Robinson told the Supreme Court that he had noticed two men near a bamboo bush in the vicinity of the golf course when he stopped to tend to his car tyre.

“I pulled off to the side near the old Club Med,” he said. “I heard a voice shout, ‘I need a light’. I didn’t know what they were looking for, then one guy shouted, ‘See him here’. And they started scuffling in the bush.”

Mr Robinson told the court he recognised the two men standing by the bush as Mr Gardner and a man he called PJ, whom he also knew as Patrick.

“PJ was scuffling and he pushed the other guy off him in the bush, then Wolda shot him,” Mr Robinson said. “When he shot the gun, I heard the shot and saw smoke. And after the gun went off, I heard a person screaming. I saw Wolda put up his hand and he pulled the trigger and shot him.

“I was shocked and that is when I started reversing [the car].”

Mr Robinson told the jury that he then gave Mr Gardner and “PJ” a lift from the scene and dropped them at a nearby beach.

The court heard that Mr Robinson had initially been arrested in connection with the murder of Mr Augustus as a suspect.

He had also been quizzed repeatedly by investigating detectives in the days after the shooting, but had not been charged.

Under cross-examination from Mr Gardner’s lawyer, Richard Horseman, Mr Robinson admitted that he had lied to police initially, saying that he had not been at the golf course at the time of the shooting and that he had not heard a shot being fired.

But he told the court he changed his story later because he had to tell the truth.

“I was scared, like, you know what I mean?” he said.

“I was not involved in anything, so I thought I must tell the truth.”

Mr Gardner, 35, and Mr Stamp, 30, both deny murdering Mr Augustus. The trial continues.