THE MAN accused of conspiring to kill his former step-mum told jurors he wanted to “frighten” and “scare” her.

Giving evidence from the witness box at Winchester Crown Court, Ben Carr admitted that “quite a bit” of what he told police was a “lie” and that during a chance meeting he asked Justin Robertson to frighten Pennie Davis in a bid to stop her resurrecting allegations against him.

Wearing a navy blue shirt and visibly shaking when he picked up a cup of water the 22-year-old revealed he “wasn’t going to forgive” Pennie for making, what he claims were false allegations, about him indecently assaulting girls in 2006.

He told the court he was on the verge of turning his life around and getting out of drug dealing at the point when Pennie came back into his family’s life eight years after the allegations were first made.

Carr, of Edward Road, Shirley, is charged with conspiracy to murder mum-of-five Pennie, who was found stabbed to death in a field near Beaulieu on September 2, last year.

Samantha Maclean, 28, of Beech Crescent, Hythe, is also charged with conspiracy to murder. Justin Robertson, 36, is charged with murder and conspiracy to murder. They all deny the charges.

The jury heard how Pennie and Carr’s dad got together in 2005 and although his relationship with Pennie was initially “ok” things started to break down when he came home to find her having sex with another man.

He told the court that when Pennie was confronted by his dad she claimed she was raped and asked Carr, then about 13, to be a witness when she went to police, but he refused.

The court heard how things came to a head in December 2006 when Pennie accused Carr of indecently assaulting girls – which he has always denied – and was taken to live with his mum, losing contact with his dad for three-and-a-half-years.

Carr, who described himself as a “daddy’s boy”, said that left him “devastated”, adding “at that stage of my life I hated her”.

He told jurors he was happy when his dad split up with Pennie and started a relationship with Alison Macintyre, who he was due to marry on September 12, 2014.

The trial heard that just weeks before the wedding, on August 20, Miss Macintyre received Facebook messages from Pennie, threatening to resurrect the allegations against Carr.

Carr admitted this made him “furious, angry and upset” and that he genuinely feared Pennie would go to the police again and would ruin the wedding.

The jury was told that later the same day Carr had successfully gone for a job interview for a care job helping troubled teenagers as part of his ambition to turn his life around and move away from drug dealing, which is how he met Robertson earlier that year.

After the interview Carr said he had a “chance meeting” with Robertson, who noticed he was down and kept asking what was up with him, so Carr opened up to Robertson about Pennie.

When asked why he opened up to Robertson, when the pair were only associates, Carr replied: “At that point I just needed someone to talk to and he basically kept asking me what was up and I was at breaking point.”

He said: “Basically what was said between us was I am not happy with that woman and I asked Justin, as being someone to take on and frighten this woman, to scare her.

“As I had just poured my heart out to Justin I was looking to Justin for someone to help me and Justin basically offered his services, to basically help me put a stop to this.”

Carr told the jury that at that stage there was no plan, adding Robertson was someone who would “follow something up like that, he’s quite an intimidating person”.

Proceeding.