A MAN accused of plotting to murder a love rival in a child-custody feud told the court: “There was no plan to kill him that night.”

Kevin King, 30, denies conspiracy to murder Mark Walsh, who was left with permanent hearing loss after he was peppered with more than 100 pellets from a sawn-off shotgun outside his home.

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King, of Lodge Lane, Lytham St Annes, said he “disliked” Mr Walsh and Mr Walsh’s partner Chloe Goodbear — the mother of King’s daughter — but insisted he did not hate the pair.

From the witness box at Preston Crown Court, the wagon driver described Mr Walsh as “a bully” and claimed Mr Walsh had accused King of the shooting in a bid to jeopardise an impending court hearing.

King said: “He is doing everything he can for me not to have access to my little one. He told the police I was there so I would get charged with attempted murder to guarantee I would not see her.”

Michael Shorrock QC, prosecuting, said Mr Walsh had been mistaken when he had identified King as being the gunman.

But King said: “It was not a mistake. He knew I was not there but he is trying to put me there. It was malicious. He knew I was not there and he told the police ‘It was definitely Kevin King’.”

He told the court his friend Donovan Wallace, 26, had admitted firing the gun on January and Jack Wilding, 20, had kicked the gate but had run away from the scene. But while the attack was taking place behind Mr Walsh’s home in Accrington, King was in the South of England, making a delivery in his lorry.

Wilding, of no fixed address, and Wallace, of Lodge Lane, Lytham St Annes, both deny attempted murder and King denies conspiring with the pair to kill Mr Walsh.

He said: “Why would I get a 20-year-old to shoot someone? If I wanted to do it and I had access to it I would do it myself. I would not get anyone else to do it.

“I have got nothing to hide. If I was involved in it I would admit to it. I am here to defend myself.”

He said he had no “beef’ with Mr Walsh or Ms Goodbear, telling the court: “I dislike her but I have got to still respect the fact that she is my daughter’s mum.”

Proceeding.