A man accused of ordering the murder of a mother-of-five who was stabbed to death as she tended her horses in a New Forest field has told a court how he wanted to "frighten" her and stop her making allegations of sexual assault against him.

Pennie Davis, 47, who worked at a supermarket, was found dead by her husband Peter Davis on September 2 in a field at Leygreen Farm, Beaulieu, Hampshire.

Justin Robertson, 36, of no fixed abode, denies her murder and conspiracy to murder but was traced by police after he dropped a set of car keys at the murder scene, Winchester Crown Court was told.

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

The court heard that the murder victim was the partner of Carr's father, Timothy Carr, for six years and the family moved in together in Chichester, West Sussex.

Carr told the jury that he was the eldest of the children in the household which included Mrs Davis' five children.

The defendant, who said he had dyslexia and ADHD, explained that he had up until then been attending a school for special educational needs but was taken out of formal education when they moved from the Southampton area to Chichester.

He said that he fell out with Mrs Davis when she asked him when he was 13 years old to back up an allegation of rape and he refused.

He described how he had returned home to find Mrs Davis having sex with a man and when he informed his father, Mrs Davis claimed that she had been raped.

Carr said her version was a "load of rubbish" because there had been "no screaming or shouting".

He said that when he was 14, Mrs Davis attacked him by strangling and scratching him after he had asked her and his father to return home from a night out because he was having trouble babysitting the other children.

Then in December 2006, when he was still 14, he said Mrs Davis accused him of sexual assault against someone else which he denied causing him to move out of the home to live with his mother in Applemore, Hampshire.

He said that having to leave his father left him "devastated" and said of Mrs Davis that "at this stage of my life I hated her".

Carr said that he then moved out of his mother's home and by the end of 2013 he was living in a caravan with a friend and turned to dealing cocaine to fund his drug habit.

He said: "I used to take cocaine myself, I had a habit. I would be doing during the week up to 10 grams, the weekends I could do more than that."

He described how at about the same time his father had split from Mrs Davis and formed a new relationship with Alison Macintyre and said they were like "two lovesick puppies".

The trial has heard that it was as the father and Ms Macintyre were about to get married that Mrs Davis sent her a Facebook message in August last year in which she threatened to repeat the allegation of sexual assault against Carr which he said made him "furious, angry and emotional".

He said he also feared that she would disrupt his father's imminent wedding.

Carr said that on the same day he had successfully gone for a job interview for a care job helping troubled teenagers and said that he had been aiming to turn his life around.

He explained that he met Robertson, who he dealt drugs to, by chance that day and hatched a plan for him to scare Mrs Davis.

He said: "I saw Justin as someone to take on and frighten this woman, to scare her. I was looking at Justin as someone to help me and Justin offered me his services to help put a stop to this. I saw him as someone what would follow something up like that, he's quite an intimidating person.

"The plan was having Pennie frightened and scared, to leave us alone, to leave me and my family alone."

The case was adjourned until tomorrow.