A twin spoke of how a fun New Year’s Eve ended in tragedy after his brother was shot dead outside a nightclub in Clerkenwell.

Aarron McKoy and his twin Lee were celebrating their birthday at Clerkenwell House Wine Bar, in Hatton Wall, on January 1 when Aarron was gunned down as part of a long-running feud between rival gangs, the Old Bailey heard.

Lee McKoy spoke quietly in the witness stand as he described how he went with his brother to a friend’s house in Archway, then to Dalston before heading to the club on New Year’s Eve.

The brothers spent two hours in the venue with no problems before the atmosphere changed and revellers headed for the exit “like everyone was gasping for air”.

Mr McKoy heard a bang “like a gun shot or firework” and ran to nearby Leather Lane and jumped in a friend’s car to look for his brother.

He couldn’t find him, or reach him on the phone, but people in the area were behaving normally so he assumed the noise had been a firework and he left.

As he reached the area round Angel Tube he received a call saying someone had been shot.

He said: “Because I couldn’t get through to my brother I had a gut feeling something had happened. I went back to the club but it was taped up with police everywhere.”

He identified himself to police and discovered it was his brother who had been shot and killed.

Officers asked for his mother’s details, but Mr McKoy said he “wanted to tell her myself”.

Earlier the court heard how Aarron Mckoy was beaten, chased then killed.

The McKoy brothers, both known as Twin, were associated with the Holly Street Boys, a Hackney based gang – Lee McKoy said the twins were “involved in some things but not in everything”.The court was told that the Holly Street are bitter foes of the London Fields Boys, and affiliated gang the Lordship Boys, based in Stoke Newington.

Another Holly Street associate, Ricky Walkington, was stabbed in the leg outside the club, causing the venue to be cleared. In a confrontation outside the club a gun went off, the prosecution claimed.

Dean Smith, 26, from Lordship Road, Stoke Newington, a rapper also known by his street named Bungle, is said to have pulled the trigger.

Perrie Dennis, 22, of Thornbury Close, Newington Green, Osman Mohammed, 23, of Homerton Road, Hackney, Daniel Oyetoro, 27, of Charlbury Crescent, Romford, and Jack Nichols, 21, and Ceon Hewitt, 22, of High Street, Wickford, are also charged with his murder.

The trial continues.