A man entrusted to move a car in which a dying murder victim had been transported was put behind bars for three years four months today.

Anthony Staff was told by a judge: "You were needed and trusted to move that car in which you knew a man who had been murdered had been carried."

The 48-year-old victim Mark Reissing was beaten and fatally stabbed by Nazzareno Abela in Rice Hey Road, Wallasey, on July 9 last year over a £150 drugs debt.

He and Geoffrey Allen, outside whose home the attack took place, then bundled him into the Vauxhall Astra being used by Abela and dumped him in Manor Lane near the Promenade in Wallasey where he was found dead a few hours later by an early morning dog walker.

Abela, 47, of Springfield Road, Wallasey, was jailed for life last month after being convicted of murder and Allen, 41, who was convicted of assisting an offender and concerned in supplying Class A drugs, received ten years.

Staff, 23, of New Street, Wallasey, had pleaded guilty to assisting an offender.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that after the murder Abela's drugs supplier arranged for Staff to collect the heavily bloodstained Astra and drive it from Wallasey to the Everton area where he abandoned it.

It was later found partially burnt out but evidence of blood staining was still found.

Jailing him Judge Clement Goldstone, QC, the Recorder of Liverpool, said that Staff, who was the drug dealer's side-kick as a runner, had been recruited shortly after the killing to drive the vehicle away.

He said that although his role had been "short lived it was a very important role." He added that there was no suggestion that Staff had been involved in setting fire to the car.

Paul Wood, defending, said that after his arrest Staff, who had been on licence from a serious wounding offence at the time, had been recalled to prison to complete that sentence.