A WIFE asked a man to kill her husband and offered him his truck, £4,000, and £400-a-week for life, a jury heard.

Susan Bacon allegedly contacted Barry Squires, whom she and her husband had known for 25 to 30 years, towards the end of September to October 2008, with the request.

Mr Squires told Nottingham Crown Court yesterday he had said "no" and "you don't want to go down that road" to Mrs Bacon, who is on trial accused of her husband's murder.

Mrs Bacon and her son Michael tried to hire people to commit the murder of her husband and his father Nigel.

They eventually arranged to pay a man called Peter Jacques tens of thousands of pounds to murder the gamekeeper.

Mrs Bacon, 55, of Keeper's Cottage, near Clumber Park, Michael Bacon, 21, of Wordsworth Avenue, Mansfield Woodhouse, Jacques, 29, of Charlesworth Street, Bolsover, and Sean Woodcock, 42, of Mapletoft Avenue, Mansfield Woodhouse, deny murder.

Jacques, an associate of Michael Bacon's father-in-law Sean Woodcock, bought black clothing, a pair of gloves, a neck tube and a torch from a Mansfield shop on November 25, the court heard.

Later the same afternoon he picked up three knives from Tesco in Chesterfield Road, Mansfield.

He also went to the area of Keeper's Cottage to "case the joint" 24 hours before the murder, the court was told.

Mr Bacon, 50, was stabbed in the darkness of Keeper's Cottage between 6.51pm and 6.55pm on November 26.

The outside lights were turned off by Mrs Bacon, using the fuse box in the kitchen, so her husband might not see his killer, the prosecution allege.

A recording of the 999 call she made to paramedics after Mr Bacon was stabbed was played in court yesterday morning.

She said to the operator: "There's blood everywhere. My husband went to shut the gates and he went out through the door and somebody tried to stab him."

Paramedic Trevor Slater told the court Mr Bacon was on the kitchen floor, covered in blood.

Mr Slater said he instructed Mrs Bacon to call 999 so he could arrange for a second ambulance to come, because her husband was too heavy for the two paramedics to lift on their own.

He said: "She was very agitated, she was wandering around wanting various belongings."

Mr Bacon died from blood loss from stab wounds in the right shoulder and neck area, and heart disease.

Proceeding