A woman was stabbed to death as she tended her horses in the New Forest by a hitman recruited to stop her from making indecent assault allegations, a court has heard.
Pennie Davis, 47, who worked at a supermarket, was found dead by her husband on 2 September in a field at Leygreen Farm, Beaulieu, Hampshire.
Justin Robertson, 36, of no fixed address, denies murder and conspiracy to murder. He was traced by police after he dropped a set of car keys at the murder scene, Winchester crown court was told.
He had been paid £1,500 by the son of Davis’s former partner to carry out the attack, it was claimed.
Benjamin Carr, 22, of Southampton, and Samantha Maclean, 28, of Hythe, are also charged with conspiracy to murder, which they deny.
Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, said: “Penelope Davis went to tend her horses in a field at a farm near Beaulieu on the edge of the New Forest.
“Whilst there and alone in a small paddock within the horse field, she was attacked and repeatedly stabbed by the defendant, Justin Robertson.
“Penelope’s body was found later that same afternoon lying in the field by her husband, Peter Davis, who had left work and come to give her a hand with the horses.
“They had only been married for a matter of months.”
Smith continued: “The defendant, Justin Robertson, had agreed to kill Penelope Davis for money. He had agreed to kill her for the defendant Ben Carr. It was he, Ben Carr, who had the plan, Robertson and Carr carried out that plan to kill Penelope Davis with the help of their fellow defendant Samantha Maclean.”
Smith said Carr had wanted Davis “silenced” because he believed she would make an allegation to police that he had indecently assaulted someone, a complaint she had previously made. “Ben Carr wanted Penelope Davis silenced, so he recruited others to help him.”
Smith said Davis, who had four children, knew Carr because she had been in a relationship with his father, Timothy, from about 2006 to 2012.
He said Ben Carr had a “lasting hate and anger” towards Davis after she made a complaint to police about an alleged sexual assault by him when he was 14 in 2006.
Smith said police took no further action on the complaint and added that Carr “strenuously and consistently” denied the allegations.
He said: “The accusations left Ben Carr with a lasting sense of animosity, hatred, towards Pennie Davis. It didn’t wear off.”
Smith said Davis repeated the allegations against Ben Carr in August last year after she found out that Timothy Carr was to marry his new partner, Alison Macintyre.
He said Davis sent Facebook messages to Macintyre saying one of the alleged victims of Carr would be making a statement to police.
Davis wrote in one message: “Good luck, you will need it.”
Smith said: “The truth of those allegations matter not a jot. When you are simply accused of something like that it touches, in the most difficult way, all parts of your life.
“Ben Carr was going potentially to be labelled. People do not look beyond the allegation – it affects your relationships, it affects your own thoughts, it affects job opportunities. The list is endless and hugely important. It goes on and on.
“So Ben Carr came to the conclusion that killing Pennie Davis was the only means to bring those potential allegations to an end.”
The prosecutor said police connected Robertson to the murder scene as he dropped the keys to Maclean’s car in the field which were later found by officers searching the area.
Smith said Robertson and Maclean deny any part in the murder while Carr claims that he recruited Robertson only to scare Davis, not kill her.
The trial continues.
