UKIP leader Nigel Farage yesterday told jurors the pilot of a plane that crashed with him on board had threatened to kill him.

The South East Euro-MP was giving evidence to Oxford Crown Court at the trial of Justin Adams.

Adams, from Buckland, near Faringdon, was piloting a light aircraft set to tow a UKIP banner above Buckinghamshire on General Election day last May, but the plane crashed at Hinton-in-the-Hedges, near Brackley.

The 46-year-old denies five charges of making threats to kill both Mr Farage and air crash investigator Martin James in November last year.

Alan Blake, prosecuting, said Adams’ marriage and business had collapsed following the accident and “he began to drink heavily and became somewhat depress-ed.”

He said he was referred to his GP and the community mental-health team.

Mr Farage said he spoke to Adams once after the crash but was advised to end direct contact when the Civil Aviation Authority began an inquiry.

Mr Farage rang Adams on November 12, the day after the CAA report absolved Adams of any blame.

They spoke on the phone again on November 25.

Mr Farage said: “He was really, really angry. He started saying you sold your story to The Sunday Telegraph, you’ve done nothing for me, UKIP has done nothing for me, I’m going to sell my story.”

The next day Mr Farage drove from his home in Kent to see Adams. They met at his home before going to the Lamb pub, where they were joined by Paul Lazarus, a psychiatric nurse from Abingdon Community Hospital.

Mr Lazarus told jurors he came along as “a third party” after Adams told him on the phone of his intention to kill Mr Farage.

Mr Farage said during lunch Adams told him: “I used to be in special forces and no-one’s safe, do you understand me?”

He said Adams later said in a “much calmer and more rational way, ‘I was going to kill you today, but I’ve decided not to, but I can’t preclude it from happening in the future’.”

His secretary later told him Adams had called and told her he was buying a gun and would give Mr Farage a week to issue a statement about Adams’s side of the story “or else”.

Under cross-examination by Alistair Grainger, defending, Mr Farage said he was subjected to “all sorts of crackpots and threats”, which he usually ignored, but added: “What was different about this was that in the end it had been specific.”

The trial continues.