THE MAN accused of stabbing to death mum-of-five Pennie Davis took to the witness box to deny her murder - before threatening one of his co-defendants.

Giving evidence at Winchester Crown Court, Justin Robertson admitted he was a thief but not a murderer, insisting: “I am not on that level, it's not my thing.”

Wearing a light grey suit and a black tie, the 36-year-old said he had waited six months to have his say and that the first he had ever heard about Pennie was several days after she was found stabbed to death in a field near Beaulieu.

Robertson, 36, of no fixed address, is charged with murder and conspiracy to murder.

Benjamin Carr, 22, of Edward Road, Southampton, and Samantha Maclean, 28, of Beech Crescent, Hythe, are also charged with conspiracy to murder.

They all deny the charges.

But in the witness box yesterday Robertson turned to Carr and said: “Ben, I swear to you I am going to chase you around every jail in this country.

"I promise you, I am coming for you.”

Turning back to the jury he went on: “I don't care what you lot think, I hope you find me not guilty, but by the end of this my friends and family will know I am telling the truth, that's what I care about.”

After his defence barrister, Rupert Pardoe, outlined his string of previous convictions, Robertson told jurors: “I'm a money earner. I don't kill people, I don't harm people like that. I have never hit a woman in my life.”

As previously reported, the prosecution claims Carr offered to pay Robertson £1,500 to murder Pennie, in a bid to stop her resurrecting historic claims that he had indecently assaulted girls.

Through some of the questioning yesterday Robertson laughed and joked, even telling the court at one point he was “chilled” but under questioning from Ben Carr's barrister, James Scobie QC, he turned his attention to Carr in the dock.

Robertson told the court: “I will look at anyone of you in this court room and I will look you in the eye and tell you I did not do this.”

Earlier in the day Robertson admitted to the court he was in Beaulieu on the day of Pennie's murder, September 2 last year, but that he was there to burgle a house opposite the field where she was stabbed to death.

He said Beaulieu was a “posh area” which he would target because “it was rich people who didn't know how to protect it” adding “but I only steal things they could claim on their insurance and so didn't cost them”.

He said he approached the house, but when he saw a man come out, he went back to Maclean's car and discovered the keys were missing.

He told jurors he had left them in the car and when he couldn't find them, he called his friend to pick him up.

When asked if he had dropped the keys during the “murderous attack” on Pennie, Robertson replied “definitely not”. When asked how the keys ended up beside Pennie's body, he said did not know.

When asked about his relationship with co-defendant Carr, Robertson said they were never friends and first met around three months before Pennie's death.

He said they only ever spoke about drugs, that they never spoke about Pennie and insisted Carr was lying when he said that they had.

He said that after Carr sold him some “dud” cocaine for £1,800, he was constantly chasing Carr for his money back and that explained the regular phone contact between the pair in the weeks leading up to Pennie's murder.

When Mr Scobie suggested that it was in fact Robertson who owed money to Carr, Robertson laughed for a few seconds and said: “You are joking ain't you”.

When told by Mr Scobie that this wasn't a laughing matter, he replied: “Does it look like I'm laughing? I am looking at 40 years because of him [Carr].”

When asked about his other co-defendant, Maclean, Robertson said she was “great” and that there was “no chance” she was involved with Pennie's killing.

He was also asked if he confessed to the murder to anyone, to which he replied: “Why would I confess to something I didn't do?”

He also told the court he was “gobsmacked” and “devastated” when he discovered he was wanted by police for Pennie's murder.

He told the jury he first heard about the murder and that he was the main suspect on September 6, when a friend told him and that the news “shook” him.

He said: “I couldn't believe it. I was gobsmacked, I was wounded to be honest. I was gobsmacked my friends would even think I could be capable of something like that.”

He added that he knew he was “no angel” but he would never do anything like that.

He said he didn't go to the police for another three days because police had convicted him for “many different things” that he claimed he didn't do in the past.

But he added that once he found out that his friends, who had children, had seen their homes raided by armed police, he had to try and clear his name.

Proceeding.