SIX brokers, including two from Southend and Benfleet, have gone on trial accused of rigging a lending rate used between banks.

The Libor rate is used to carry out trillions of pounds worth of financial deals.

All six men, who have pleaded not guilty, are accused of conspiracy to defraud by trying to move the rate linked to the Japanese yen.

Over a period of four years, the men are alleged to have helped Tokyo-based trader Tom Hayes manipulate the rate, which underpins hundreds of trillions of pounds of contracts, from mortgages to corporate lending.

Hayes, who was convicted of conspiracy to defraud earlier this year, repeatedly asked the men to fiddle rates in his favour, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Prosecuting, Mukul Chawla QC highlighted a series of conversations between Hayes, who worked for UBS in Tokyo and later joined Citigroup, and the men while they worked at other banks in which they discussed manipulating rates.

On October 10 2006 Hayes asked Darrell Read, who worked for Icap, to "try to get six months up today for me please".

Read replied: "Do my best mate," the court was told.

Hayes contacted Terry Farr, a broker at RP Martin on the same day to say: "Get six month Libor up please mate, and one month too. Please get three month lower but in general want Libor high please."

Around a week later Hayes asked Read to persuade a friend at a different bank to alter the six-month Libor rate, saying he had a "fix" worth about 350 billion Japanese Yen - then around £1.75 billion - depending on it.

The six men - James Gilmour, 50 from Benfleet, Farr, 44, from Southend, Noel Cryan, 49, of Chislehurst, Kent; Read, 50, of Wellington, New Zealand; Danny Wilkinson, 48, of Hornchurch; and Colin Goodman, 53, of Epsom, Surrey; are accused of conspiracy to defraud by trying to manipulate the Libor rate linked to the Yen.

Some of the traders agreed to help Hayes manipulate Libor rates in exchange for treats like a takeaway curry, the court heard.

The six defendants all deny the charges against them.