A former public schoolboy from a "respectable" middle-class family who was killed in his home over an alleged drugs debt was more than just a small-time dealer, the court has heard.

Matthew Demko, 25, from Ashtead, began his life as a dealer at the age of 16, supplying cannabis to friends, a witness told the jury.

His friend Michael Jordan is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of bludgeoning to death Mr Demko, who worked as a landscape gardener, over an unpaid £3,000 cocaine debt.

David Sillet, a university friend of Mr Demko, told the court Mr Demko started dealing cocaine and ecstasy after he left college.

Mr Demko was said to have owed money to a cannabis supplier named in court as John from Kingston. Mr Sillet told the court how John went to a local pub in Ashtead with another man, and one of them punched Mr Demko in the face over the £3,000 he owed him.

The heard court that Mr Demko owed John money because his own customers were not paying their drugs debts. Mr Sillet said: “He and another guy came down to the local pub and punched him in the mouth and they left.”

A list of 40 names of people who possibly knew the victim was read out in court by defence and Mr Sillet confirmed that 14 of those were supplied by Mr Demko with drugs.

One of the names was that of Stephen Hynes, who owed Mr Demko £3,000 and was punched in the face by Mr Demko on one occasion.

“He punched him because he owed him money,” said Mr Sillet.

Another one of the victim’s customers, James Brooker, who lives in Thailand, owed him £4,000 for cannabis.

“I know he went to speak to his dad about it. He went round his to house and his dad said he would ‘make fair’,” Mr Sillet said.

He told how the amount of cannabis dealt by Mr Demko increased within the years and how he once bought five kilos of the drug off a supplier, with an estimated value of £12,000.

According to Mr Sillet, Mr Demko sold an average of 1oz of cocaine per week, 4.5oz of cannabis and about 100 ecstasy pills every week.

When asked by David Fisher, defending, if he knew Mr Demko’s suppliers, Mr Sillet said: “An Albanian man up in London, but I don’t know his name.”

He said: “Matt would say, ‘I’m going up to Fulham to meet my guy’, but never said his name.”

Mr Jordan denies murdering Mr Demko in his home in Links Road, Ashtead in April 2008 The trial continues.