Giving evidence for the prosecution during the trial, Tarrant told the court that in the weeks following the murder Barlow offered him £4,500 to hide the gun. Barlow and Tarrant had worked together on a number of building sites, and Barlow supplied him with drugs. Thomas Charles, prosecuting, said that following the murder “He (Tarrant) was asked to look after something by Mr Barlow initially, although it wasn’t explicit what that was.” It later become apparent that it was “the gun that was used in the murder of Mr Rai". The 22-year-old was told that someone would come and collect the gun, but this did not happen and he was told to get rid of the weapon. Instead, he decided to bury it in a wooded area in Whitchurch, near Basingstoke, in early September 2019 – thinking that he would have to show it to someone later. He later showed police where the gun was hidden, along with a cartridge that he had concealed in the wall of a bridge.