A woman has told jurors how she picked up an alleged murderer just yards away from where mum-of-five Pennie Davis was found stabbed to death. 

Winchester Crown Court heard how Emily James had gone to pick up  Justin Robertson from Beaulieu on September 2, last year and how he appeared "nervous" and "twitchy".

Robertson is accused of stabbing to death the 47-year-old supermarket worker, while he, Benjamin Carr and Samantha Maclean are all charged with conspiring to kill her.

They all deny the charges.

This morning the jury were shown a video of Miss James being interviewed by police during which she explained how Robertson's girlfriend Lian Doyle has asked her to pick Robertson up from Beaulieu.

Mum-of-five Miss James, who is in her mid-20s, said she had known Robertson since she was about 15, and described him as a "sofa surfer" because he didn't have his own place and would stay at friend's houses.

She said: “It was not unusual to be asked to pick him up as she did it a lot and that it was "no different from any other day".

She said as she drove past Beaulieu Motor Museum she had seen a "glimpse" of someone in the bushes by the side of the road.

When she did a U-turn she said she saw Robertson, who she said was nicknamed ‘Twinkletoes’ because he was always on his feet. He then got into the car.

She said: "He asked me if I was alright, I said 'yeah'. I asked him if he was alright, he said 'yeah, you know me girl'.

"He was a bit red-cheeked and I wasn't very talkative. I really didn't want to go out, I was doing my housework. I wanted to be doing my housework, not picking him up."

When asked if she queried what he had been doing she said "no".

She added: "I didn't ask, I didn't want to know. If I don't know I can't get into trouble."

Jurors were told she thought he might have been "looking around the fields and looking for stuff to sell, pricing things up".

She said she didn't see any blood on him.

Later that day she said a lot of people were at her house, including Maclean, who turned up and got Miss James' neighbour, Michael Hartmann, to pick up her car for £30, as she had lost the keys.

The prosecution claim that Robertson used Maclean's car to drive to the murder scene but was unable to drive it back, as he had dropped the keys by Pennie's body.

Miss James also recalled how armed police stormed her house days later, on Thursday, September 4, with a warrant looking for a murder weapon, as Robertson had been staying at their home.

The next day Lian Doyle and Maclean turned up at her house, but she asked them to leave as detectives had told her not to let them in.

Under cross examination from Robertson's barrister Rupert Pardoe, Miss James agreed she had never seen him be violent and that she trusted him to look after her children, aged between two and 11.

Proceeding.