An accused murderer was lying when he was recorded confessing to an execution-style killing at the front door of a regional NSW home, a Sydney judge has been told.
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Robert John Stewart McCloskey, 45, has pleaded not guilty to murdering former Rebels bikie Johnny Salafia at the 38-year-old's south coast home in 2013.
"I've just walked up and boom, boom, boom," McCloskey said in a recorded conversation in 2016, the NSW Supreme Court was told on Monday.
One of the three bullets to hit Mr Salafia went through his head, killing him.
Defence barrister Daniel McMahon said his client admits going to Mr Salafia's Kings Point home with two other people but says he was still in the car when five shots were fired at close range through the front screen door.
McCloskey also accepted the conversations he had with another man in 2016 gave the impression he was responsible, Mr McMahon said.
"What we say is that ... what he said in those conversations was not true," the barrister said.
The Crown rejected McCloskey's guilty plea to accessory after the fact to murder.
Justice David Davies, who is hearing the case without a jury, is expected to hear the recordings between the accused and another man known as Witness 297.
In one, McCloskey says a witness to Mr Salafia's murder had complained he wasn't warned before Mr Salafia was shot in the head.
"He was howling man," McCloskey told Witness 297.
"He just goes 'What the f***, you get me to come down ... You never told us what you were doing.'
"'(You said you're) probably just going to bat the c*** and you whacked the c*** in front of us. We weren't even prepared.'"
Seconds later, McCloskey makes the purported confession.
With its case relying heavily on that recording, the Crown says it's exactly what it sounds like.
"The tone and content of those conversations spoke to a relationship that was a cordial one, a trusting one and not one where he found himself intimidated ... such that he felt he needed to talk himself up," prosecutor Sean Hughes said, in his opening address.
Mr Hughes says McCloskey was acting on orders from another Rebels bikie.
A witness in the trial is expected to say that Rebels bikie told him: "I'm sick of Johnny running around and that. Robbie and his crew are coming down to fix Johnny."
The identities of many people in the trial cannot be revealed for legal reasons.
The trial continues.
Australian Associated Press
