The girlfriend of a warehouse supervisor helped him buy a love-nest cottage from the profits from millions of stolen Mars Bars, a court heard.

Emma Smiley, 25, of Glebe Court, Dunston, Bicester, denies laundering money to assist her partner, Martin Keys.

He allegedly masterminded the plot to steal "a mountain of chocolate" from Bicester-based distributor Tibbet and Britten.

The conspiracy succeeded long enough for eight lorry loads of the chocolate bars - worth more than £500,000 - to be stolen from the warehouse, a jury at Gloucester Crown Court heard.

But the scheme went wrong when a bid to collect a ninth lorry load was made - and there was not enough chocolate left in the warehouse section. By that time, Keys, 31, of Wyck Hill, Stow-on-the-Wold, had been flashing his ill-gotten gains around openly, said Simon Brand, prosecuting.

He said that when Keys went to buy a black SAAB convertible for £21,211, he took the money in cash in a Tesco carrier bag.

Keys also took £52,000 in cash in a bag to a solicitor's office as part payment for a cottage he bought for Miss Smiley in Stow-on-the-Wold.

Smiley pleaded not guilty to assisting Keys to retain the benefit of crime by accepting a payment of £54, 750 into her bank account and by allowing a £165,000 cottage in Stow-on-the-Wold to be bought in her name.

Keys, 31, of Wyck Hill, Stow-on-the-Wold, denies conspiracy to steal confectionery between July 1996 and April last year and has also pleaded not guilty to two charges of stealing confectionery and one of attempted theft.

The trial continues.

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