A MUM of five was stabbed to death for the “cheap price” of £1,500 in a desperate bid to silence her, a court heard.

Pennie Davis was threatening to resurrect historic allegations that her former lover’s son, Benjamin Carr, had indecently assaulted girls, jurors at Winchester Court were told.

It was for that reason, the prosecution allege, that Carr recruited his friend, Justin Robertson, to kill the 47-year-old supermarket worker as she tended her horses in a field near Beaulieu.

Opening the case against Carr, Robertson and their friend Samantha Maclean, prosecutors said the trio had concocted the plot that led to Pennie being stabbed 13 times.

Her body was found by her husband of four months Pete, who initially thought she was lying on the ground sunbathing, the court heard.

But as he drew closer “the reality and the enormity of the situation dawned on him and he became hysterical”, Mr Smith told jurors.

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The court heard how the plot unravelled when Robertson made the mistake of dropping car keys during the course of the ferocious attack at the paddock at Leygreen Farm.

Prosecutor Richard Smith said the reason Carr wanted Pennie dead was because years earlier she had made allegations that he had sexually assaulted girls.

Those claims were made in 2006 when Pennie was in a relationship with Carr’s father Timothy.

Although reported to the police at the time, no further action was taken following the claims, which Carr strenuously denied.

He said: “Ben Carr bitterly disliked Pennie Davis. Perhaps that is not strong enough, perhaps he came to hate Pennie Davis.”

That hatred was “reignited” in 2014 when Carr learned that Mrs Davis was threatening to return to the police about the allegations, Mr Smith told the court.

It came about as a result of Timothy Carr’s plans to remarry, said Mr Smith.

Mrs Davis heard about the intended marriage and sent messages on Facebook telling his fiancée Alison McIntyre of the allegations and wishing her “good luck”.

Mr Smith said: “The driving force was Ben Carr because of his emotion of the moment, his hatred boiling to the point where he wanted her silenced so she couldn’t ruin his life, his father’s life and Alison’s life, anymore.”

Mr Smith continued: “He needed someone else to plunge the knife on his behalf, that someone, members of the jury, would have to be close enough to him to be trusted.”

He said that Carr and Robertson knew each other and met regularly though an association with drugs.

In order to convince Robertson, said Mr Smith, Carr allegedly told him that Pennie had sexually abused him when he was younger, which was a lie that would help justify the killing.

“In choosing that justification he settled upon something he no doubt thought would appeal to Justin Robertson’s misguided sense of what is right and what it wrong”, added Mr Smith.

They agreed that Carr would pay Robertson £1,500 for taking Pennie’s life, “a cheap price indeed,” said Mr Smith.

That sum of money was later discovered by police during the search of Carr’s home – and it was found to be counterfeit.

After recruiting Robertson the prosecution say his close friend Samantha Maclean also came in on the plan.

Jurors were told that the prosecution believe that Pennie was followed in the days before her death by Robertson and Maclean in her Vauxall Zafira.

Mr Smith told how police officers had examined phone records of all those involved and were able to track the defendants movements, while CCTV was also recovered showing Maclean’s car pursuing Pennie’s Land Cruiser.

Justin Robertson, 36, of no fixed abode, denies murder and conspiracy to murder. Samantha Maclean, 28, of Beech Crescent Hythe, and Benjamin Carr, 22, of Edward Road, Shirley deny conspiracy to murder.

Proceeding.