The surgeon who operated on Scott Benjamin concluded: “The injuries are likely to have been caused by close range firing,” Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

The 30-year-old was detained at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital for two weeks after being shot during a disturbance at an address where he had been staying for a short time in Cypress Road on Walsall’s Yew Tree Estate.

During his treatment he told a police guard: "I don't know why they say I shot myself. I didn't. Somebody shot me. I was set up."

After his release from hospital he told police in a formal interview read to the court that he was wounded after up to eight masked armed men burst into the house in the early hours of January 4 last year.

Benjamin said they told him to touch their shotgun cartridges before ordering him to lie down.

He continued: "They started firing at the windows and I asked to be hit in the body and not the face if I was going to be shot.

"The gun was nearly touching me. He started poking my head. Then he let it off and I just remember the pain."

The defendant claimed to know 'one or two' of the masked intruders because of their build and the sound of their voice but declined to name them. H

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e suggested the motive for the alleged attack was an 'issue' with another man he refused to name.

He claimed the same person was owed money by Andrew Fellows, who lived at the address with his friend Tina Richards

Benjamin claimed when the masked men left the upstairs bedroom he barricaded the door believing he might be shot again and began throwing things out of the window to attract passers by.

He admitted spending the day before the shooting on a cocaine and alcohol binge and was asked if he had experienced something that may have seemed real to him but was not the truth.

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The defendant allegedly replied: "It could seem like that but why is somebody going to start popping off shots and then shoot themself for no reason?"

He claimed Mr Fellows had 'set him up' to settle the debt owed to the person with whom both of them supposedly had 'issues.'

Mr Andrew Jackson, defending, suggested this to Mr Fellows during cross examination.

The witness answered: "Why would I set him up? He is a friend of mine. Have you seen the size of him? I didn't stitch anyone up."

He agreed he was at a 'complete loss' to understand why the incident happened.

Neither he nor Miss Richards were at home when the shooting took place.

Miss Laura Culley, prosecuting, dismissed the defendant's alleged version of events as 'complete nonsense.'

Benjamin from Hilleys Croft, Chelmsley Wood denies two charges of possessing a sawn-off shotgun and two of possessing a firearm when prohibited to do so having been sentenced to imprisonment for six years.

The trial continues.