THE jury in the John Finney murder trial heard today (Thursday) how around three weeks before his death he was heard talking on his mobile phone and said: Tell them to come and see me. I m not frightened. At the time of the call Mr Finney was said to ha

THE jury in the John Finney murder trial heard today (Thursday) how around three weeks before his death he was heard talking on his mobile phone and said: "Tell them to come and see me. I'm not frightened."

At the time of the call Mr Finney was said to have been angry and talking in a raised voice.

At St Albans Crown Court the woman alleged to have heard the conversation, Susan Davies, confirmed she also heard him refer to knee capping someone and adding: "I am not being accused of something I haven't said or done."

The prosecution allege father-of-four Mr Finney was abducted from his caravan home on a farm in Northaw, Herts on the evening of February 29 last year.

It is claimed he was bundled into a van before being taken to an industrial unit in Wilbury Way, Hitchin where he was murdered and his body dismembered. Two days later the van was found burning fiercely in a field in Wheathampstead.

Mr Finney's naked body was found, minus head and both hands, two weeks later behind a garage block in Ickleford.

Mark Curran, 35, of Dollis Valley Way, Barnet, Joseph Jones, 24, of Crescent Road, New Barnet, his father Norman Jones, 50, of Dukes Head Yard, Highgate and Gary Lattimore of no fixed address plead not guilty to murder.

The prosecution say Mr Finney was killed because the four accused believed he had drugs which belonged to them.

Susan Davies went into the witness box to say that in early 2008 she regularly went to the farm at the weekends to tend to her three horses she kept there.

She said she would go with her sister who also had horses there.

As a result she said she got to know Mr Finney who she described as a "very friendly person".

She said whenever they met at the farm they would talk about their horses and pass the time of day.

But she said a few weeks before his death she remembered an occasion when he pulled into the farm yard in his lorry and got out talking on his mobile phone.

It was a Saturday and she gave the date as February 9 last year.

She said as he got out his lorry he moved away from her talking on the phone and appeared to be "a bit agitated and a bit upset" and his voice was raised.

Mrs Davies, who was called as a defence witness for the defendant Joseph Jones, was asked by barrister Stephen Vullo, defending, what she could remember of the bits of conversation she did hear.

The jury then heard read part of a statement she had given to police in which she claimed Mr Finney had said: "It weren't me, I never said that. Tell them to come and see me, I'm not frightened."

She said as he spoke his fist was clenched.

Case proceeding