A 23-YEAR-OLD man was shot at his front gate in Brockley minutes before he was due to go out clubbing, the Old Bailey heard today.

Matthew Clement was fired at three times outside the friend's house where he was staying in Whitbread Road at around 1.30am on May 30, 2010.

One bullet grazed his left collarbone while another, possibly received as he crouched down, passed through his back, puncturing a lung and causing massive internal bleeding, the court heard.

A bullet was later found lodged in the driver's seat headrest of a nearby parked car. The handgun used has never been found.

Mr Clement managed to run around the corner before he collapsed and died in Howson Road. His body was eventually found by a woman walking home with her 13-year-old daughter.

Prosecutor David Fisher said the victim, a cannabis dealer, lived an "irregular lifestyle" and told the jury: "His killer, or someone working with his killer, must have been in communication with Matthew Clement shortly before he was shot."

Taurean Davis, aged 27, from Nunhead, 24-year-old Matthew Taylor, from New Addington, and Perry Walters, aged 25, formerly of Exchange Apartments in Bromley, all deny murder.

But opening the case, Mr Fisher said: "We can't say why they did it, only they know that. But that does not diminish the weight of the evidence that leads to the conclusion that it was them."

The court heard that Mr Clement, nicknamed Chubs, had arranged to meet a girlfriend and go to a nightclub at 2am that morning, but never made it.

Right up to his death, the victim and alleged killer Walters had exchanged a series of phone calls and texts, jurors heard.

Mr Fisher claimed a text from Walters which read "I'm der" indicated the two men were planning a meeting.

But, following the shooting, Walters never called Mr Clement again and both he and the other two defendants eventually stopped using their phones altogether.

Mr Fisher said: "Once he'd been killed, Mr Walters never tried to contact Mr Clement. Why not, unless of course he knew there was no point, because he was dead."

The trial continues.