A JEALOUS dad plotted with a hitman to shoot his ex’s new love in a child-custody row, a court has heard.

Mark Walsh, 35, was showered with more than 100 pellets from a sawn-off shotgun when he was gunned down at close range in an alley behind his home in Accrington.

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Kevin King, 30, denies conspiracy to murder Mr Walsh — just days before a court hearing about King’s six-year-old daughter in January, 2015.

In a covert recording, taken from his lorry, King told a pal: “I’m going to guarantee (Mr Walsh) doesn’t see her.”

On January 12, 2015, Mr Walsh and his partner Chloe Goodbier were watching television at their home in Maudsley Street, Accrington, when their dogs started barking in the back yard.

As Mr Walsh went to investigate he was blasted in the back of the head by a gunman, wearing a ski mask, in the alley behind their home.

Mr Walsh suffered 88 per cent hearing loss and has no memory of the three months following the shooting.

The gunman, Donovan Wallace, and his accomplice Jack Wilding are serving prison sentences for conspiracy to murder Mr Walsh after they were seen running from the scene. But at the time of the shooting, King — who denies any involvement — was in his lorry in Alton, Hampshire.

Opening the trial at Preston Crown Court, Michael Shorrock QC, prosecuting, said the plan was hatched to give King a cast-iron alibi as King’s hostility towards Mr Walsh would make him a prime suspect in any attempt to kill Mr Walsh.

In February 2012, a month after separating from Miss Goodbier, King was handed a restraining order after making threats to shoot his ex and Mr Walsh.

In June, 2014, two months after the restraining order expired, the couple’s car was set on fire outside their home. On Facebook, King later admitted being responsible for the blaze.

On January 13, 2015, King was arrested at Cobham Services on the M25 and questioned for three days by police. During his time in custody, officers installed a covert recording device into the cab of his HGV.

In a number of recorded phone calls, made from his truck, King said the police were trying to pin the shooting on him but said they had let him out on bail as they did not have enough evidence.

He said: “It’s hard for them to prove that I was involved” — and that sniffer dogs had been searching an industrial estate, near Preston, for the gun “but they won’t find that”.

Mobile-phone records between King and Wallace on January 12 revealed the pair spent two-and-a-half hours speaking to each other that day.

In the time between the shooting and Wallace’s arrest, there were 38 failed calls and 18 successful conversations between Wallace and King.

Mr Shorrock said: “What were these calls and attempted calls about? Can you have any doubt they were about what had happened the previous night, what had gone wrong and what to do?

“Evidence of the history between Kevin King, Donovan Wallace and Mark Walsh establishes a motive. The events of January 12 and 13 give rise to an irresistible inference that these two men planned the attack and Jack Wilding was recruited to carry out the plan.

"If you are sure there was an agreement to kill Mark Walsh and that Kevin King was party to it, he is guilty of this offence.”

The case continues.