A POLICE informer who is accused of murder said he told officers about hundreds of illegal guns coming into Greater Manchester - but they repeatedly ignored him.

Graham Redford, aged 43, told the jury at a trial at Manchester Crown Court that Greater Manchester Police refused to act on his tips.

He said the weapons included machine guns and hundreds of key-fob guns from eastern Europe.

Redford, of Whittle Street, Walkden, a former private investigator, told a retired police contact, ex-Detective Sergeant Bill Gresty, formerly of Bury CID, that he had infiltrated a drugs gang in late 2004 who were bringing in the weapons, some from Northern Ireland.

He said he also told MI5.

Redford is accused of murdering business associate Stacey Lloyd, aged 31, of Ripon Close, Whitefield, in January, 2005.

He has denied shooting Mr Lloyd and also denied putting his body in the boot of his car before setting it alight in Unsworth.

The prosecution say he killed Mr Lloyd, an alleged drug dealer, to avoid paying him £6,000,

The jury of six men and six women heard details of letters from Mr Gresty to police chiefs. They were read out by Jonathan Goldberg QC, who is defending Redford.

After being contacted by Redford, Mr Gresty wrote three times to police bosses to ask why Redford had been ignored. He wrote that Redford had been "cast astray by the police".

Mr Gresty claimed police chiefs planned only to act on Redford's tip-off to coincide with Operation Excalibur, a planned high-profile clampdown on illegal guns.

But in late 2004 the operation was not imminent.

Redford told the court that an acting police officer, whom he had asked for help, claimed that GMP bosses decided to use his tip off "as a good PR stunt" to justify the operation to the public.

Mr Goldberg asked Redford: "The police thought it was more important to get a public relations campaign rather than get the guns?"

Redford answered: "Yes."

The defendant said he had no faith in bosses at GMP. He claimed he believed one of them was leaking information to a Manchester family who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He said Mr Lloyd, who had an extensive criminal record and at the time of his murder was facing charges of violence and possession of drugs and ammunition, had stolen £100,000 from the family in a cocaine scam.

He claimed Lloyd was killed by another business associate, who cannot be named for legal reasons, upon the order of the family.

One letter from Mr Gresty to police chiefs read: "I have been given information from a professional source, that Lloyd was killed with his own gun by his boss on behalf of the family."

Proceeding