AN axe was used to attack a Semley man before he was strangled, set alight and buried in a shallow grave, a court heard this morning.

The body of 43-year-old Lennie Adams was discovered by a farm worker just a mile and a half from his home in Station Road in October last year.

On the opening day of the murder trial of Christopher Charles, 48, his girlfriend Charlie Louise Chase, 25, and Paul Chambers, 49, all of Station Road, at Winchester Crown Court this morning, prosecutor Michael Fitton said Mr Adams had been attacked “with an axe or more, and at some stage strangled” on the afternoon of October 14.

The jury was told that an argument between several people was overheard by neighbours and passers-by in Station Road that afternoon.

Mr Fitton said: “There are no witnesses available to describe to you exactly what happened that afternoon. The only persons available to tell that tale are the defendants.”

The prosecution alleges that an argument between Charles and Mr Adams escalated to involve all three defendants and at some stage objects including an axe, were picked up and used as weapons.

Mr Fitton said blood found at the scene proved Mr Adams had been injured but that the defendants didn’t seek any medical help, instead putting him into the boot of a Ford Scorpio car belonging to Chambers and driving him to the remote location where his body was discovered the following day.

“They didn’t want to see him again,” he said. “They didn’t care what happened to him. They didn’t care if he lived or died.”

A witness travelling behind the Ford at about 5pm that day saw a figure covered in blood sit up in the boot of the car, which the prosecution says was Mr Adams, still alive at this point.

He was then driven to The Marshes where his partially burnt body was discovered in a makeshift grave the following day.

Charles, Chase and Chambers deny murder.

The case continues.