A MAN who plotted to kill his stepfather for a £200,000 inheritance deleted incriminating messages to try to hide his involvement, a court heard.

Ashley Day denies conspiring to murder his 70-year-old stepfather John Sales.

It is alleged, with the help of his best friend Scott Moffat, they hired a hitman to kill Mr Sales so he could inherit most of his house on Hythe Hill, Colchester.

Ryan Hynes, 21, has admitted attempting to murder Mr Sales at the property on November 10.

Brian Reece, prosecuting, alleged there was a plan hatched, and radio silence followed, before attempts were made to delete phone calls and messages connected to the alleged plot.

Det Con Mark Gridley spoke to Day on December 22 and December 24 to try to eliminate him from the investigation.

He told the jury: “I asked if he would be willing to provide us with his mobile phone and we would take it back to the station ready to be downloaded.”

He explained after making the request Day “acted nervously” and then asked for some time claiming there were intimate and personal things between him and his wife.

He did hand over two other phones, one which allegedly included details about Land Registry searches he had carried out on the Hythe Hill home to find out its worth.

When the detective returned to the house two days later to pick up the outstanding phone he claims Day told him he had lost it. He found it by January 7.

The jury heard the phone was handed over with Day “visibly shaking”.

It is claimed several messages were deleted but some were later recovered which allegedly implicated Day in the conspiracy.

The court also heard about several other phones which were recovered from the suspects and other family members.

Brian Reece, prosecuting, claimed there was a deliberate phone silence after the plan had been made and before the stabbing.

Allan Compton, defending Moffat, claimed the jury should not infer “an absence of contact based on one mobile phone’s record” between Day and Moffat when Day used several phones.

He added, while cross examining a phone analyst, “the checks you have made on the data available on the handsets recovered have not revealed any contact between those and Ryan Hynes”.

Police and experts attempted to recover as much of the allegedly deleted information as possible and were able to recover some files but not others.

Flash Ashley Day, 46, of Rose Allen Avenue, Colchester, Scott Moffat, 49, of Colchester Road, Manningtree and a teenage girl from Colchester who cannot be named have been charged with, and deny, conspiring to murder Mr Sales.

Hynes, of Long Road, Lawford, is awaiting sentence for attempted murder.

  •  The trial continues.