Son paid hitman £1,500 to murder stepmum over threat to expose child abuse claims
A CAreer criminal hired a hitman to murder his stepmother for just £1,500 after she threatened to accuse him of being a paedophile.
Benjamin Carr, 22, harboured a burning hatred of mother- of-five Pennie Davis, 47, during her sixyear relationship with his father.
He ordered fellow drug dealer Justin robertson, 36, to kill her after she threatened to tell police he sexually assaulted young girls eight years earlier.
Mrs Davis was discovered in a pool of blood by her new husband after she was stabbed while tending her horses in the new Forest. But Carr was caught after the killer accidentally left his car keys beside her body and was forced to call a friend to pick him up from the isolated spot.
Detectives discovered cocaine addict robertson accepted just £1,500 to commit the murder and was paid in counterfeit notes.
Yesterday, the two men were jailed for life after a jury convicted them of murder and conspiracy to murder. robertson will serve a minimum of 32 years and Carr a minimum of 30 years.
They were branded ‘evil’ by a senior police officer as the victim’s family said justice has not been achieved because they will one day walk free.
Mrs Davis’ grieving husband Pete, 50, described the former show jumper as an ‘angel’ who loved nothing more than to ride her horses. ‘We had our lives just waiting to be taken with both
‘Brutal and ferocious’
hands together as a married couple and that was taken away from me. It’s been a nightmare ever since,’ he said.
Mrs Davis was stabbed 13 times as she tended her four horses in a farm paddock near Beaulieu, Hampshire, last September.
The supermarket worker suffered horrific injuries and was discovered by her husband who thought she was sunbathing.
Police were quickly on the trail of those responsible and discovered robertson, of no fixed abode, agreed to murder the victim at the request of Carr.
Winchester Crown Court heard he harboured a ‘lasting hate’ towards Mrs Davis which left Carr estranged from his father after their relationship ended.
She had told police Carr sexually assaulted two young girls in 2006, when he was aged just 14, but no further action was taken.
A fortnight before the murder Carr discovered she had repeated the allegations in Facebook messages to his father’s new fiancée and claimed she had ‘new evidence’ and would go to police again.
Prosecutor richard Smith QC said: ‘Ben Carr was worried Pennie Davis was going to go to the police and allege that he had previously indecently assaulted girls.
‘It was for that reason it seems that Ben Carr wanted Pennie Davis silenced and so he recruited others to help him do that.’
Carr, of Southampton, contacted robertson, a fellow drug dealer and petty crook, who agreed to carry out the killing and even showed off a knife similar to the murder weapon to a friend. He handed himself in to police but said he had nothing to do with the killing and his keys had been at the scene because he’d dropped them while looking for wealthy homes to burgle in the area.
During the trial robertson, who has been jailed for more than 70 thefts, told the jury he ‘didn’t care’ if they convicted him and threatened to track down and kill Carr.
Standing in the witness box, he said: ‘Ben, I’m going to chase you down in every prison – I’m going to find you.’ He even spoke towards Mrs Davis’ relatives in the public gallery and invited them to visit him in prison and look him in the eye. Sentencing robertson, Mr Justice Popplewell said he was responsible for a carefully planned, brutal and ferocious murder against a ‘helpless woman’. He said he showed ‘no remorse’ and branded his behaviour in the witness box as ‘deplorable’ as well as ‘arrogant and offensive’.
Speaking outside court, one of Mrs Davis’ daughters, Georga Pead, 19, said the jail sentences have not given them justice.
She said: ‘Carr has still got his mum and they will both still have people waiting for them outside. We have got to live here without her every single day. I don’t think that is justice at all.’
Mr Davis, 50, added: ‘ even if they get 30 years in prison they will still get the chance to come out and have families.
‘now I just hate everything. Going down to the horses, seeing people holding hands, enjoying the sun, it hurts because that’s what me and Pennie used to do.’
Det Supt Paul Barton, who led the inquiry, said: ‘robertson is an evil and cold killer who was motivated by a relatively small amount of money,’ he said.
‘Carr had a long-term hatred for Pennie. He tried to silence her once and for all and knew robertson would do anything for money.’