JURORS today heard a recording of a 999 call a wife made to emergency services after her husband had been stabbed outside their remote cottage near Clumber Park.

The 20-minute tape was played at Nottingham Crown Court this morning in the trial of Susan Bacon, her son Michael Bacon, Peter Jacques and Sean Woodcock, who all deny the murder of Nigel Bacon in September last year.

Mr Bacon's widow Susan, 55, made the call at 6.55pm. Prosecutors claim it was an act and she was not surprised or concerned by what had happened.

It is alleged Mrs Bacon and her son organised the contract killing of 50-year-old Mr Bacon, of Keeper's Cottage, a bungalow near Clumber Park, in a "planned, determined and cold blooded killing." The motive for the killing was "a combination of greed and loathing," jurors heard on Friday.

Mrs Bacon and her 21-year-old son, of Wordsworth Avenue, Mansfield Woodhouse, had already tried to hire other people to commit the murder, but eventually arranged to pay Jacques tens of thousands of pounds to murder Mr Bacon. The court heard Mr Bacon had more than £200,000 in bank accounts, safety deposit boxes and in the house.

During the emergency call, Mrs Bacon confirmed to the operator that her husband was breathing and that he had been stabbed in the stomach, and she was she told she needed clothes or a towel to press on the wound.

When paramedic Trevor Slater arrived at the address, he told the court that he knocked on a door and a face appeared at a window and directed him to another doorway.

Mr Slater went to the other doorway and it led into a lit up kitchen where he was to treat Mr Bacon, who was lying in blood on the floor.

Mr Slater was met by a lady at the cottage and he was asked by prosecutor Peter Joyce QC what her demeanour had been.

Mr Slater replied "very anxious, frightened".

Mrs Bacon, also of Keeper's Cottage, her son, Jacques, of Charlesworth Street, Bolsover, and Woodcock, of Mapletoft Avenue, Mansfield Woodhouse, all deny murder.