A son has told of his horror when he realised his father had been shot as they were cutting down branches at a marina.

Tree surgeon Sam Weatherall became hysterical on seeing blood pouring from the nose and ears of his father Ray.

“I reacted very very worried and scared,” he said. “I ended up running around the car park screaming for help.”

Mr Weatherall was giving evidence on the fourth day of a trial in which Ray Weatherall’s wife Hayley, her lover Glenn Pollard and his daughter Heather are accused of plotting to kill him.

Maidstone Crown Court has heard there were other failed attempts on 53-year-old Mr Weatherall’s life before he was hit in the face by a “sniper shot”.

Sam Weatherall said Glenn Pollard was present at his family home during discussion about removing branches at Sandwich marina.

His father, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and sister Jade went with him to help with the job on November 29 last year.

Mr Weatherall said they were taking a break at about 2pm, crouching down by the riverbank.

“I was rolling a fag,” he told the jury. “Dad was rolling a fag. Jade was talking to us. I didn’t see anything that happened but while we were crouching down we heard this almighty bang which made our ears ring.

"We heard this almighty bang which made our ears ring..." - Sam Weatherall

“With that, we didn’t know what happened. It was a really loud bang. We didn’t know what it was.

“I looked at him. I saw him holding his head with both hands. Then I saw blood start running from his nose and his ears.”

Mr Weatherall said he screamed for help, while his sister remained calm.

“She tried to calm me down and keep hold of dad, as well as find out what happened,” he continued. “Once we realised what had happened – that dad had been shot – I went to try to get help.

“While I was doing that, my dad was trying to keep me calm as well. I tried to calm myself down.”

Mr Weatherall said after an ambulance had been called he contacted Hayley to tell her what happened. “She was hysterical on the phone,” he said. “Then she came to find us.”

After the shooting, Glenn Pollard was at the family home more, he said, adding: “Heather came as well, which was out of the blue because she rarely visited. It was four days a week for about two weeks.”

The court has heard that there was an earlier unexplained incident when dad-of-seven Ray Weatherall, who is diabetic, was badly burnt by a boiler heating his swimming pool bursting into flames.

There were also plans to drown him at sea while fishing and to drug him with pills and inject him with an overdose of insulin, it was alleged.

Prosecutor Simon Taylor told the jury: “The central allegation in this case is that in the months between the summer of 2017 and early spring of 2018, each of these three defendants agreed that Raymond Weatherall should be murdered, and each of them took steps to carry out that agreement,” said prosecutor Simon Taylor.

“These steps went beyond mere planning and culminated in serious attempts on Mr Weatherall’s life. Fortunately, their planning and subsequent efforts to murder him were unsuccessful.”

Mr Taylor said the motive for wanting to kill Mr Weatherall was his wife’s affair with Pollard, assisted by his daughter, described as “a real daddy’s girl” who idolised her father.

“It seems that Glen Pollard didn’t feel he could accomplish this goal on his own and so he recruited his seemingly devoted daughter to assist them on their mission,” he told the jury of eight men and four women.

Attempts on Mr Weatherall’s life were passed off as accidents, unfortunate events or harmless coincidences.

It was only when he was shot in the face – the bullet passing through his right cheek and out of the left cheek - that the police became more involved.

Even at the point of the shooting the trail remained cold until the affair was revealed in January this year. It was then that the bigger picture emerged, said Mr Taylor.

Hayley and Raymond Weatherall married in December 2015 and had three children together.

He had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in August 2015 and the following year was given about 18 months to live.

Mr Weatherall and Glenn Pollard had been friends for over 20 years and went shooting together. Pollard legitimately owned guns.

His daughter had known Mr Weatherall all her life and called him Uncle Ray. She had access to her father’s firearms kept unsecured at their home and was aware of her father’s affair with Weatherall.

Heather Pollard, who calls herself Arthur, was found to have parked her Citroen car close to the marina at 8.29am. She drove off at 2.08pm – six minutes after the shooting was reported to police.

Glenn Pollard, 49, Heather Pollard, 20, both of Church Lane, West Stourmouth, near Canterbury, and Wetherall, 32, of Molland Lee, Ash, all deny conspiracy to murder.

The trial continues.