A COUPLE used the proceeds of crime and lied on mortgage applications to buy property worth a total of more than £4.5 million, a court heard.

A jury has been told how, between 2006 and 2012, Marlon Hibbert and Heidi Armstrong purchased a total of 15 properties, including a luxury £650,000 farmhouse at Butterfield Hall Farm, Plodder Lane, Bolton, where they live.

But prosecution barrister Alex Leach stated at Bolton Crown Court that when 40-year-old Armstrong and Hibbert, aged 38, applied for finance they would exaggerate their incomes using, as deposits, profits from sales of properties which had been obtained fraudulently or cash from sources for which there was no legitimate explanation.

Police investigating the couple’s financial dealings found massive differences between the declared income of Hibbert and care home worker Armstrong and the money passing through their bank accounts.

The prosecution claim the cash could only be from the proceeds of crime.

Jurors were told that, over the years, Hibbert’s business interests ranged from running a carpet fitting business and part owning the former Tum Nuk Thai Thai restaurant at Harwood to buying property on behalf of others at auctions and property development and renting homes.

But between 1999 and 2013, his declared income was just £8,269 and between 1998 and 2013, Armstrong’s declared earnings were £60,878.

However, when police searched the couple’s home in February 2012 and again in October 2013, they found £8,500 in cash and 11,140 euros.

Between 2006 and 2012, Hibbert also blew £307,166 due to gambling after placing £963,694 in bets and a total of £353,548 was paid into his bank accounts.

Almost £26,000 was in a bank account jointly held with Clint Grundy and Hibbert also held a Spanish bank account which he used to buy a property in Majorca.

Between 2006 and 2011, Armstrong, who was said to earn £1,000 a month from her job as a care worker, had a total of £97,713 paid into her bank accounts.

The couple had bought properties in Spain, Bolton, Wigan, Salford, Hindley, Whitefield, Prestwich, Farnworth and even plots of land in the Cayman Islands.

Hibbert denies 22 offences, including providing false information to obtain mortgages and transferring and converting and concealing criminal property. Armstrong denies six offences of providing false information and converting criminal property.

The case continues.