The woman accused of helping to murder a 17-year-old Norfolk student yesterday admitted she was aware of the plan to cover him in petrol and burn him - despite earlier saying she was oblivious to the plot.

The woman accused of helping to murder a 17-year-old Norfolk student yesterday admitted she was aware of the plan to cover him in petrol and burn him - despite earlier saying she was oblivious to the plot.

Maria Chandler says she was forced to act as a driver for co-accused Jimi-Lee Stewart and Jonathan “Munch” Clarke as they bundled Simon Everitt into a car. He was taken to Mautby woods, near Yarmouth, where he was beaten, tied to a tree, doused in petrol and set alight.

Chandler, 40, had told Norwich Crown Court she had not been aware Mr Everitt was in the boot of her car until they arrived at the woods. She said Stewart and Clarke led him into the woods and it was only when she heard screaming that she realised “something bad” was happening.

However, cross-examining her, prosecutor Karim Khalil read an extract from a police statement in which she said: “I heard Jimi-Lee and Munch talking about how they were going to cover him in petrol and set him on fire.”

She was then asked when she had heard this: “On the way there, on the way to the woods.”

Mr Khalil asked if this account had been correct and Chandler agreed that it was.

Earlier, when challenged by Clarke's counsel Anthony Arlidge over whether or not Clarke had threatened her, she said: “You don't have nightmares at night, you don't sleep with the light on - I do.”

Chandler has already admitted she lied in her first police interview in which told officers she knew nothing about the crime. She later told them she had been forced to take part.

Mr Everitt's body was found dumped in a swamp at Mautby in June last year. He had been murdered after a dispute over Fiona Statham, a girl that he, Clarke and Stewart had all been dating.

Chandler, of Lancaster Road, Yarmouth; Clarke, 19, from Telford, and Stewart, 25, of Nelson Road Central, Yarmouth, all deny murder.

The case continues.