A group of teenagers was chucked out of a Hayes pub less than an hour before handyman Paul Thrower was killed, a jury has heard.

The first witness was called on Monday, November 3, in the Old Bailey trial of four young men accused of murdering 46-year-old Mr Thrower at a block of flats in St Dunstans Close, Hayes on Thursday, February 20, this year.

Kiro Halliburton and Zakariya Subeir, both 18, along with two 17-year-olds who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been marched out of The Great Western pub in Hayes , just after 8.30pm that evening, the court heard.

The jury was then shown CCTV images from outside the pub in Dawley Road, which showed them entering the pub and a short while later leaving again, with landlord Viki Singh Sapra, Mr Sapra’s brother and two other customers.

Giving evidence, Viki Singh Sapra told jurors he had been working behind the bar that night and his attention was drawn to three or four young men who had entered the pub and sat at a table in a DJ area.

“I noticed them because they were in hoodies and they weren’t buying any drinks. I went over to ask them what they were doing and they said they were waiting for someone,” Mr Sapra said.

He said: "I noticed they looked very young and that’s when I told them to leave. They said they were not going, so I took one of them by the arm and told them all to leave.”

The teenagers, three who were aged 17 at the time and one 16-year-old, resisted.

Mr Sapra told the court he had heard one of them threaten him.

“He said: ‘Come outside, I’ll jook you’, things like that,” Mr Sapra said.

“I know street language – it means to stab someone.”

Paul Thrower, on right, with his brother, Darren, on Darren's wedding day.

Once outside the pub and after Mr Sapra had pushed two of the teenagers away from him, he said one of the young men pulled a black pouch out of the front pocket of his trousers which he took as a threat of a weapon, which is when Mr Sapra’s brother called the police.

Defence lawyer, John Cooper QC, told Mr Sapra: “I’d like to address the plethora of assumptions you made that night. You assumed they would be trouble because they were wearing hoodies.

“When you thought they were under age, did you ask them for ID? No, you had already made up your mind that you wanted to chuck them out.”

On the first day of the trial, Friday, October 31, the Old Bailey jury heard that at around 9.30pm on the same evening as the The Great Western incident, Mr Thrower was hacked with an axe and stabbed to death when he confronted a gang of youths who had spat at and taunted his girlfriend.

Jurors were told last week that Halliburton and Subeir, carried out the fatal attack after being handed the axe by two 17 year-old boys.

Halliburton, of Tollgate Drive, Hayes; Subeir, of Rockingham Road, Uxbridge; and the two 17 year-olds, from Hayes, deny murder.

The trial continues.