A New Cross murder victim called an ambulance with his dying words after he was shot in a trivial row over a motorbike, a court heard.

Nathan Allen, 21, knocked on an elderly woman's back door begging for help before he collapsed and died from a gunshot wound to his chest in Ludwick Mews on May 3 2010.

Enid Scott, 72, was watching television in the Milton Court Estate when Mr Allen staggered to her door but she was too terrified to go outside and phoned police for help.

An Old Bailey jury today heard how Mr Allen managed to call an ambulance and gasped: “Been shot - in my lung - I can't breathe.

“Quick - on Ludwick Mews - I'm in a back garden. Ludwick Mews, New Cross.”

The line then went dead and by the time emergency services reached Mr Allen, who lived in Desmond Street, it was too late to save him and he was pronounced dead in Mrs Scott’s garden at around 9pm.

Jamel Green, aged 20, of Engleheart Road, Catford, 21-year-old Bosun Sode, of Joseph Hardcastle Close, New Cross, and Curtis Quashie, aged 22, of no fixed address, stand accused of his murder.

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett told the court: “When police arrived they found the victim Nathan Allen lying in Mrs Scott's garden.

“Nathan was able only to ask the police to help him, he soon lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Within minutes an ambulance was on the scene but Nathan's heart had already stopped beating.”

The court heard how the murder was triggered by a motorcyclist riding his bike too close to Dionne Gilling, then 22, who was walking through Milton Court Estate in Deptford with her young daughter.

Mr Aylett said: “A motorcycle, quite possibly Nathan Allen's motorcycle, came too close to Miss Gilling and her daughter.

“Whether or not it actually was Mr Allen may not much matter, Miss Gilling either realised it was him or else thought that it was one of his friends.

“It was this that set in train a sequence of events that was to end with the murder of Nathan Allen.”

He went on to say after the incident Dionne Gilling rang defendant Curtis Quashie.

He said: “She must have told Quashie what had happened and she may have wanted him to do something about it.

“At the time that Ms Gilling made contact with Quashie he had been with Jamel Green and Bosun Sode.

“The prosecution suggest they can only have been too willing to fall in with Quashie's plans - they were of the same mind as Quashie.”

The trio deny murder. The trial continues.