Steroid use led to my stepson's murder

Former gangster Dave Courtney told today he feared his stepson's steroid use may have prompted a row that led to him being shot dead in his car.

Cage fighter Genson Courtney was gunned down in a gangland-style assassination as he got into a VW Golf outside the home of his girlfriend Ginny in Greenwich.

His stepfather, who was jailed in the Eighties for attacking five men with a meat cleaver, paid tribute to the 23-year-old today. He said he and Genson's mother Jenny had concerns over his use of steroids to help him train for cage fighting: "It is in you 24 hours a day. That fact contributed to the altered personality I knew of my son.

"He started taking it and then he turned into that. Someone has got the hump with him enough to shoot him in the head. He was not always as quick-tempered as he was at the end."

Genson was shot in Banning Street at about 10.50pm on Sunday and died the next morning. Operation Trident is investigating. Detectives suspect a drugs baron owed thousands of pounds by Genson ordered his killing.

His stepfather, 53, said: "He was what would be considered a naughty boy but he had honour and respect. There are a lot of people who want to put this right. I am in no doubt police will catch the person who's done it. I am just praying they catch him before it becomes common knowledge who it was."

Jenny, 42, said: "He was a good boy. Ginny is distraught. We live in a gun and knife culture. You never think it is going to happen to yours." Friends paid their respects at the family home in Plumstead, named Camelot Castle. Visitors included cage fighter Mark "The Beast" Epstein and boxer Julius Francis.

Dave Courtney has written books on his criminal past. He claims to be the model for Vinnie Jones's role in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.