Jailed Wolverhampton drug dealer's wife paid for kitchen refit with laundered money

HayleyWilson took some of the cash to her husband Karl in Jamaica where he had fled as police closed in, said Mr Michael Burrows, QC, prosecuting

She had been given £40,000 from a bundle of money 'the size of a rugby ball' handed by her husband to his cousin Leon Samuels before leaving the UK, it was claimed.

But the 50-year-old and her husband both said the money came from prostitution, Mr Samuels told the court. Mrs Wilson had been a sex worker in London during the 1990s and had £120,000 in a building society account in June 2001 which she withdrew soon afterwards, it was said.

Almost £54,000 was spent buying a Mercedes SL320 which she has admitted breaking a court order banning the disposal of assets by selling for £11,000 in February 2009, two months after her husband ran away to the Caribbean, the jury heard. She said the rest had been given to him.

But Mr Burrows claimed drug money paid for a £8,929 kitchen refit in late 2004 at her Yew Tree Lane, Tettenhall home and maintained a further £360 cash found at the address by police in February 2009 also was also proceeds from her husband's crimes.

Karl Wilson was jailed for 16 years in January of this year after pleading guilty to conspiring to supply heroin and cocaine between March 2002 and February 2009, the court heard.

He fled to Jamaica on December 11 2008, a week after police discovered a haul of heroin and cocaine delivered to a flat in Aberdeen by couriers from Wolverhampton, and was not extradited back to face justice in this country on June 16 last year, it was said.

Mr Burrows concluded at Wolverhampton Crown Court: "Hayley Wilson is the wife of a major drug dealer who made a lot of money dealing in cocaine and heroin. The money spent on the kitchen units, found in her possession and taken by her to Jamaica was all from his dealing in drugs. She knew or, at the very least, would have suspected that."

Mrs Wilson from Yew Tree Lane pleads not guilty to three charges. They allege she converted or transferred money from crime by using it to purchase, and have installed, kitchen units between August 1 and December 31 2004; was in possession of £360 of Scottish bank notes that were the proceeds of crime on February 4 2009 and in or about June 2010 assisted Karl Wilson to retain criminal property by taking money from his criminal conduct to him in Jamaica.

The case continues today.