The grieving widow of a murdered businessman told a jury her husband received death threats before he was killed.

Ken Harvey, 44, who ran a courier firm, was shot five times as he sat in his car on a quiet Sussex road after being confronted by two men on a motorbike.

Mr Harvey, who had been due to go on trial accused of importing cocaine worth half a million pounds into the UK, died two days later in hospital.

Colin Meek, 35, of Saunderstone Road, Leyton, East London, and Jason Bradley, 37, of Claygate Crescent, Croydon, both denied murder at a trial at Lewes Crown Court.

The prosecution allege the two men were hired contract killers who were paid to shoot Mr Harvey in connection with the drug trafficking charge.

Mr Harvey, a father-of-four of Broad Oak, near Hastings, was driving to work in the early morning of August 18, 2003 when he was shot through the window of his silver Mercedes when he stopped at crossroads in the hamlet of Cripps Corner, near Battle.

Police later found £50,000 in cash in the car.

The two killers were riding on a stolen Kawaski motorbike with the false number plate V1LON.

The court heard Mr Harvey's business, TK Couriers, was based for a time at a depot in Kent run by George Taylor, a co-defendant in the drug case.

Both men blamed each other for the drugs, which were found hidden in a lorry arriving at Dover in January 2003.

Mr Taylor was jailed for 20 years after being convicted at a trial in June last year.

Tania Harvey, who had been married to the murdered man since 1998, told the jury after her husband was charged and released on bail in January 2003, a man turned up at the depot in a black Mercedes and warned: "TK Couriers you are all dead."

She said her husband told her he was worried about the threat and strange telephone calls he received. He also feared he was being followed.

Soon afterwards he moved his business to Wadhurst to distance himself from Taylor, who had been remanded in custody.

Mrs Harvey agreed her husband could be described as rough and ready and "over-bearing".

She told how he kept a cosh in his office and had once locked his ex-wife's boyfriend in the boot of his car as a warning.

She said on the morning of the shooting he had got up early as usual and as he left the house their young daughter said she wanted to wave goodbye from the bedroom window.

Mrs Harvey said: "I pulled the blinds open and we saw him getting into his car and we were waving goodbye.

"He was waving and we waved back. His arm was just waving out of the car as he drove to work.

"It was just an ordinary day."

The trial continues.