A businessman pointed to where a bullet remains lodged in his cheek as he described the night he was gunned down outside an Edinburgh casino.

Tony Demarco, 63, told the High Court in Edinburgh he didn’t know who shot him as he faced the four men accused of plotting his murder across the courtroom.

The trial has heard how Mr Demarco of Danderhall, Midlothian was walking towards his silver Mercedes after a night out with friends at the Gala Maybury Casino at the western edge of the city on June 8 last year.

Re-living the ordeal on the witness stand the father-of-two said: "As I went to open my car door I heard a bang and felt a thud behind my ear, my right ear."

Advocate depute John Scullion, prosecuting, asked him to describe the feeling.

"Very painful," replied Mr Demarco. "I turned. I tried to get away from the pain while clutching my head, then walked round the car to the pavement. I thought I had been assaulted."

Mr Demarco said he had not been aware of anyone behind him and had not heard any footsteps as people from the casino rallied to help him.

Mr Demarco said the bullet was still there and that medics told him it was too dangerous to remove as it was so close to the carotid artery and important nerves.

Earlier, the trial heard claims that one of the men on trial, Imran Sakur, owed Mr Demarco money.

Mr Demarco denied this and the claim he was owed thousands of pounds by another man, Shahid Aslam - who Sakur claims to be the real culprit of the attempted murder.

The businessman said he had gone to the casino that night to try to patch up a row between Sakur and Mr Aslam over a business deal which had gone wrong.

"I just thought I could mediate and get it sorted out amicably," he said.

Sakur is one of four men who deny conspiracy to murder and attempted murder, while acting with an unnamed accomplice.

Also accused are Francis McGlone, 39, of 24 Lochfield Crescent, Paisley; Jamie Robertson, 25, of 81 Stock Street, Paisley; Imran Sakur, 35, of 12 Elcho Drive, Broughty Ferry, Dundee, and Craig Kelbie, 35, of 4 Saggar Street, Dundee.

The charge claims that the murder plot began in April last year when Sakur is alleged to have approached Kelbie about recruiting others to make the ‘hit’.

Kelbie is then alleged to have approached Robertson and McGlone asking them to track down Mr Demarco in return for payment, before the four men met to discuss ways of carrying out the attack.

Robertson and McGlone are then said to have taken a firearm to the casino, near The Gyle shopping centre, where Robertson pulled the trigger.

McGlone also faces charges under the Firearms Act accusing him of possessing ammunition at a house in Paisley.

McGlone claims he was at home on the night of the shooting and Robertson and Sakur have lodged notices in court blaming others - named only as "Kev" in Robertson's case and the other man named by Sakur's lawyers as Shahid Aslam.

The trial continues.