Criminal: I was asked to murder showjumper

A digger driver who allegedly shot dead his ex-fiance asked a criminal to run her off the road and kill her months before her murder, a court heard today.

Mark Dyche, 36, had also previously arranged for showjumper Tania Moore, 26, to be beaten with a baseball bat and robbed at her Derbyshire home, saying he wanted her dead, the court was told.

Craig Stonier, 41, of Stokeon-Trent, who admits taking part in the robbery a year before her death, said Dyche wanted Miss Moore killed, despite being told of a rumour she had cancer. He told Nottingham Crown Court of two meetings in which Dyche, 36, asked him to run Miss Moore off the road.

She was found shot through the face in her car in March last year after being forced to stop. Stonier, with John Booth, 23, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob Miss Moore. Dyche, of Marston Montgomery, Derbyshire, denies murder and conspiracy to rob.