A CARPENTER accused of shooting a businessman dead in a botched burglary at his home has told a court he broke into a sandwich shop on the same night as the fatal raid.

Kevin Downton has denied being involved in the burglary during which Guy Hedger was killed in his £1 million home in Hampshire.

The 40-year-old told Winchester Crown Court that he broke into the Apple Snacks sandwich shop on the Ebblake industrial estate, Verwood, Dorset at about 1.38am on April 30.

He described using a piece of wood to break a window and prise open bars to enter the shop office.

He said: "I found some money, money bags, which I put in my bag, I found a safe and at that point I heard a car on the estate."

Downton described how he left the premises with the safe and hid between two vans until he found the car was being driven by co-defendant Jason Baccus.

He said they met earlier in the evening and discussed the raid on the sandwich shop but had not arranged to meet up there.

Downton said he then drove alone to some woods in a bid to break open the safe but left after about an hour when he had failed to get into it.

He said he returned to his other car in the Upton area and "started doing cocaine on my own".

He earlier told the jury that he had a cocaine drug problem and would sit alone in vans taking it because he was ashamed that others would find out about his habit.

Downton is one of three men standing trial accused of killing Mr Hedger, 61, who died after he was shot during a raid at his home in Castlewood, Ashley, near Ringwood, Hampshire, at about 3am.

Downton, of Winterborne Stickland, near Blandford, and his co-defendants Baccus, 42, and Scott Keeping, 44, both of Verney Close, Bournemouth, all deny murder.

Downton previously told the court that he would often carry out commercial burglaries on industrial estates but would not burgle houses

He said: "It's different from a house, a house to me is people's personal things and I wouldn't like it if people came in and took my personal things."

When asked by his defence barrister Adam Feest QC, he denied that had been involved in the raid on Mr Hedger's home, possessing a sawn-off shotgun or shooting him.

Helen Keeping, 40, from Poole, denies two charges of assisting an offender relating to Baccus by allegedly disposing of stolen property and fellow defendant Keeping by allegedly providing him with a false alibi and disposing of stolen property.

The three male defendants also pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated burglary and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear or violence.

Baccus and Downton admit one charge of burglary of industrial premises but deny another offence of burglary.

The trial continues.