A LORRY driver accused of taking part in a clean-up to hide the scene of the murder of a Petersfield man told a court on Wednesday he had never even seen the man, dead or alive. Keith Sims, 51, from Portsmouth, is accused along with Mark McGaughey, 24, from Bordon, of helping to clean up the house where 29-year-old Danny Matthews was killed. Mr Matthews, of Chapel Street, Petersfield, was murdered by Malcolm Carter at Carter's Rival Lodge Farm home in West Harting, West Sussex, on June 3 last year. Carter, 43, stabbed builder Mr Matthews in the base of the neck with a hunting knife after an altercation between the pair, a jury was told. Carter, who has admitted murder, Graham Palfrey, 46, and allegedly Sims and McGaughey then cleaned the bungalow and burned a green sofa in a bid to hide the killing from police. Following the killing, Carter then took the body of Mr Matthews and buried it in woodland at Inholm Wood, near Chichester, West Sussex. Mr Matthews' body lay hidden until September 2006, when Carter led police to the woods and showed them where it was lying. Palfrey and his girlfriend, 32-year-old Kirsty Harper, from Petersfield, have already pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. On Wednesday, Winchester Crown Court heard evidence from Sims in which he claimed he had never met Mr Matthews and had played no part in the clean-up after his killing. Defending, Anthony Bailey QC said: "The crown are saying that you concealed from the police the true circumstances surrounding the killing of Danny Matthews in one of two ways. "The first is by providing a false account of the movements of Danny Matthews between June 2 and June 5. "To your knowledge, have you ever provided police with any account of the movements of Danny Matthews?" Sims replied: "I have never seen Danny Matthews alive or dead – I have never had any contact with him." Mr Bailey then asked Sims if he had conspired with Palfrey to give false accounts to the police or if he had played any part in taking away Mr Matthews' body. Sims said: "No, none at all." The court also heard evidence from interviews given by Sims at Fareham police station following his arrest on June 23 last year. In the interviews, Sims said the green sofa on which Mr Matthews was killed was not burned to hide evidence but was instead thrown out after it had broken during a fight between Palfrey and Carter. During the interviews, he said: "The green sofa has been thrown away because they broke it – Malcolm Carter was fighting with Graham Palfrey. They are always fighting. "If Malcolm Carter does not chase up the money that they are owed from their roofing business, Graham Palfrey will take it out on him. They had a fight and the sofa gave way." Sims also claimed during the interviews that he had not been to Rival Lodge Farm for 'ages' and believed that the green sofa had not been in place for about a month. He later confessed to visiting the farm to take some tobacco to Palfrey on June 10 – one week after Mr Matthews was killed. Speaking about his June 10 visit, Sims said: "I noticed that the furniture had been changed and there was new carpet there. The green sofa had gone." Sims said he must have been confused when he told interviewers that the room changed a month before. The court had earlier heard that Sims had been drinking with Carter, Mr Matthews and Palfrey in the Market Inn, Petersfield, earlier on the night of June 3. Palfrey, who lived with Carter, got into a 'minor fracas' with another group of people in the pub and the two rival groups agreed to meet later for a fight. Prosecuting, Michael Parroy QC told the court that just after midnight, Carter, Palfrey, Sims, Mr Matthews and Peter Farrell, who has since died, left the pub in Palfrey's silver Jeep Cherokee car to meet the other men. When the other group failed to turn up, the men got back in the jeep and drove back to Rival Lodge Farm. There, Sims went to sleep in his lorry, which was parked in the yard, and the other men went inside the house. Once inside the house an argument broke out between Carter and Mr Matthews. Without warning, Carter went into his room and returned with a hunting knife which he plunged into Mr Matthews' neck. Mr Parroy said: "After the killing, Graham Palfrey instigated a conspiracy to conceal what had taken place. "Keith Sims certainly played a part in that conspiracy." Mr Parroy added that McGaughey, who did odd jobs for Palfrey, worked hard to clean the house and the jeep to hide any evidence of the killing. Both Carter and Palfrey were remanded in custody by Judge Michael Broderick to be sentenced at a later date. Sims and McGaughey both deny perverting the course of justice. The trial continues.