THE former stepson of Pennie Davis is responsible for her death but he never wanted her killed, it was claimed in court.

Giving his closing speech on behalf of Ben Carr, James Scobie QC told jurors at Winchester Crown Court the plan to frighten the mum of five went wrong when she fought back and Justin Robertson “panicked”.

He admitted drug-dealing Carr had put him in that field near Beaulieu but he said the plan was to scare her, not kill her.

Mr Scobie said: “It is agreed her voice remains silent, the result of an ill-conceived, not properly thought out plan by two people ill-equipped to carry it out.

“One, we suggest, a criminal novice, the other, totally out of his depth, too arrogant to appreciate the task in hand, which may have appeared simple on paper, but far more complex and actually difficult in reality.”

Carr is accused of recruiting 36-year-old Robertson to murder Pennie in a bid to stop her from resurrecting claims he had indecently assaulted girls.

Mr Scobie pointed to Roberson's past telling jurors this was not a man whose previous convictions were “in keeping” with murder and would not have been the “ideal candidate” to recruit if murder had been the plan.

He added: “He [Robertson] actually is somebody, as himself says, who is and has been very much a protector of women.”

He also said Robertson not going back to find the key to Samantha Maclean's car, which he used to get to Beaulieu and was found beside Pennie's body, proved the killing had not been planned and carried out by a clinical executioner.

Later, Jane Bickerstaff QC gave her closing speech on behalf of 28-year-old Maclean and said it was a “ludicrous” suggestion that her client would agree to be part of a plan to kill someone she didn't know for someone she didn't know.

She told jurors that single, mum of five, Maclean - a known gossip - was not someone to trust with a plot to kill and had simply allowed Robertson to use her car and phone and drive him around, as she and many others had always done.

She told jurors that phone contact between Carr and Maclean's phone did not prove they were plotting a conspiracy as there was only one text between their phones in the lead up to the murder, last September 2.

Robertson is charged with murder and conspiracy to murder.

Carr, of Edward Road, Shirley and Maclean, of Beech Crescent, Hythe, are both charged with conspiracy to murder.

They all deny the charges.

Proceeding.