A "greedy" city trader tried to involve his stepbrother in an attempt to rig a key interest rate, a court has heard.

Tom Hayes, of Chineham Close, Fleet, is accused of trying to set the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) by getting his relative Peter O'Leary to influence a colleague at HSBC.

Prosecutors claim Mr Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was motivated by "greed" and acted as the "ringmaster" in an enormous fraud to rig Libor, which is behind trillions of dollars worth of financial deals.

Mr Hayes, 35, denies eight counts of conspiracy to defraud over a period from 2006 to 2010.

On the second day of his trial at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday, jurors were shown an email sent to Mr O'Leary on April 20, 2007.

Mr Hayes wrote: "Do you know the guy who sets Yen Libor at your place?" to which Mr O'Leary replied: "Yes I worked with him ... spoke to him quite a bit in New York."

The accused wrote back: "Mate, can you do me a huge favour and ask him if he'll set his three month yen libor on the low side for the next few days as I have one million US dollars of fixes? Would be a massive help, if not don't worry."

Then over the phone Mr O'Leary was encouraged to buy his HSBC colleague a "few drinks", jurors learned.

In an audio recording played to the jury, Mr Hayes said: "If you got to know him brother, it would be a big help?"

In a second call with Mr O'Leary, he added: "Say, 'do you fancy setting a low yen three month libor? It would really help my brother out'."

Three months later, the 35-year-old urged his stepbrother to ask his HSBC colleague to set the six-month yen libor "on the high side", the court heard.

When Mr O'Leary agreed to make the request in a "jovial email", Mr Hayes replied: "Just keep it super casual".

Jurors heard how a day later Mr Hayes, who earned around £4.8 million working at UBS and Citigroup from 2006 to 2010, told his stepbrother: "I thought about it and I shouldn't have asked you to do that. Sorry mate."

The court was read another email between two of the defendant's contacts from December 7 2007, which said Mr Hayes was "going to Vegas to watch the Hatton fight... lucky bastard. Ps. Bubbly on its way with Tom".

Jurors were also shown an instant message from Mr Hayes to a city trader in which he said: "Libor is high because kept it artificially high."

Prosecutor Mukul Chawla QC told the jury: "If you needed a clearer example of deliberate rigging of rates, this is it."

Mr Chawla said there was "huge pressure" on banks at the time of the financial crisis in 2007/08 and a number of them had discussed bringing down their Libor rates, including senior UBS figures.

The lawyer told the jury that it may be suggested during the trial that the British Bankers' Association "condoned" the manipulation of Libor.

A recording of Mr Hayes' interview with the Serious Fraud Office was also played to the court, in which he said: "The way I would describe Libor fixing was like the cherry on top.

"You would try and squeeze as much out of the market as you possibly can."

The trial before Mr Justice Cooke, which is expected to last 10 to 12 weeks, continues.