Alleged murderer Leroy Symons was a police informant regarding gang matters, and officers have “great concerns” for his safety now that news is public, according to a detective.It was Mr Symons’ own defence lawyer who first suggested last week that he’d helped officers with intelligence at the same time as he was being investigated for murder.Shade Subair suggested to prosecution witness Detective Constable Leroy Mathurin that her client helped the police as an informant, although Det Con Mathurin said he was not aware of that.However, Mr Symons’ status as an informant was confirmed by Detective Constable Garth Hibbert and Detective Inspector Michael Redfern yesterday, when they were called as prosecution witnesses.Both detectives stressed that information about informants is only revealed publicly in exceptional circumstances.Det Insp Redfern commented: “The information came out from the defence, from Leroy Symons’ defence,” and “I had great concerns for that, for Mr Symons’ safety.”He later added: “We do everything we can to protect a source”.Mr Symons, 21, and his half-brother Ronniko Burchall, 22, are on trial accused of murdering Shane Minors, 30, who was shot dead on the doorstep of his Pembroke home early on December 17 2009.The victim is said by prosecutors to have been murdered amid an ongoing feud among rival gangs because his brother, Shaki Minors, was a member of the 42 gang.Mr Symons first told police on January 4 that it was Mr Burchall who pulled the trigger, and that he’d confessed as such to him.Mr Symons admitted showing his half-brother how to use a gun and telling him how to get to Mr Minors’ home. He claimed Mr Burchall committed the killing to make a name for himself in the Parkside gang.Yesterday, Ms Subair stressed the level of help Mr Symons had given detectives as an informant, before and after the Minors murder.However, Mr Burchall’s lawyer, Jerome Lynch QC, suggested informants do not always tell the truth and Mr Symons may have been the killer despite his claims otherwise.Det Con Hibbert told the trial Mr Symons was a “person of interest to the intelligence division of the Bermuda Police Service” and he and Detective Constable Shannon Trott had a conversation with him on January 4 2010 which Det Con Trott recorded in writing.Mr Symons had been arrested two days before as a suspect in the murder. He was speaking to the intelligence division voluntarily, was free to leave at any time and was made “no promises” as a result of the interview, according to Det Con Hibbert.In addition to making claims that Mr Burchall was involved in the killing, Mr Symons spoke of other matters, which included the structure and membership of the Parkside gang.He said Mr Symons also told officers where two guns were located. Det Con Hibbert said he did not check these pieces of information out as any information they get is passed to the operational unit of the police.He said Mr Symons admitted he used to sell drugs for the 42 gang, and he also offered police access to social networking sites to gain access to conversations among gangs, although the police did not take him up on the offer.Det Con Hibbert took issue with Mr Burchall’s lawyer, Jerome Lynch QC, describing Mr Symons as a “snitch” and a “prick” and said he does not use those terms.In answer to questions from prosecutor Robert Welling, Det Con Hibbert said the information Mr Symons provided on matters other than the murder was of “low value”.However, he said informants in general are “very important” to police and they would only reveal in exceptional circumstances that someone had assisted them. He said this is because the person could be harmed and because it would affect others who would want to give information to the police.In his evidence, Det Insp Redfern said he was dealing with Mr Symons in two capacities; as someone who was a suspect in the murder and as someone who was willing to help police recover firearms.He said he referred him to the intelligence unit on January 4 for the latter reason, as information about the location of firearms is taken “very seriously.” However, he said, he carried on dealing with Mr Symons as a suspect in the shooting.“I took it that he incriminated himself as a result of what he told me. I went to the Department of Public Prosecutions and took advice on how to proceed,” he explained.Det Insp Redfern said Mr Symons offered to participate in a covert tape recorded conversation with Mr Burchall. He declined this, but went ahead and arranged for the pair of suspects to be recorded anyway, without Mr Symons knowing.He explained part of his concern about Mr Symons’ offer was: ‘The heat was on him. He was of no fixed abode although he was living in the Friswell’s Hill area and there was a lot of pressure on him in terms of being involved in the shooting of Shane Minors.”For this reason, he said police did not want to induce any tape recorded interview, but wanted it to be recorded secretly so Mr Symons and Mr Burchall would talk freely and openly.The jury in the trial heard the covert tape recording last week, which was made in April 2010 while both men were in the Hamilton Police Station holding cells. During the conversation, Mr Burchall accused Mr Symons of talking to police. Mr Symons admitted speaking to them on one occasion following the murder, saying he was scared, but told his half-brother that he had not said anything in subsequent interviews.During cross examination of Det Insp Redfern, defence lawyer Jerome Lynch QC asked if it had occurred to him that Mr Symons himself might be the killer of Mr Minors.The officer replied that Mr Symons was still being treated as a suspect by the police at the same time as being utilised as an informant.Ms Subair quizzed Det Insp Redfern over information Mr Symons gave police on December 4 2009, prior to Mr Minors being killed. He agreed with her that Mr Symons named Jakai Harford as the next person from the 42 gang that was going to be killed by the Parkside gang, and that six hours later, Mr Harford’s brother, Kumi Harford, was shot dead. A man named Antonio Myers has since been convicted by a jury of the murder of Kumi Harford.Mr Symons and Mr Burchall deny murdering Shane Minors and Mr Burchall also denies an additional charge of using a firearm to commit murder.The case continues.