Wife of crime boss Terry Adams: I’m not using his cash, I’m just living beyond my means

 
High Court appearance: Ruth Adams
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The wife of a notorious crime boss has claimed that she simply lives “above my means”, after being accused of using sham companies to finance a lavish lifestyle from her husband’s hidden wealth.

Actress Ruth Adams told the High Court that she and husband Terry, head of the Adams family crime gang, were so short of money that they might soon be forced to live with their parents.

Mrs Adams — who was once in EastEnders and appeared recently in musical Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be, at Theatre Royal Stratford East — added that she had failed to earn much from her stage career, or from her clothing and interior design businesses.

But Kennedy Talbot, prosecuting, insisted she was concealing the profits made by her husband during his time as a “successful career criminal”.

He set out details of her high spending since his release from prison in 2010 after a money laundering sentence, including:

*£12,000 on dental treatment;

*£2,500 on a weight loss programme;

*£3,850 on spa membership for her husband;

*More than £5,300 on parking fees, fines and the congestion charge between 2009 and last year;

*Nearly £15,000 on restaurants, entertainment, hotels and flights — including a trip to China for Mrs Adams and her daughter, and 20 meals at Brown’s in Mayfair.

Mr Talbot said such spending, much of it in cash, indicated the couple were not poor, and meant the court should reject an application by Adams to have all or part of his outstanding debt from a confiscation order — £628,497 — written off.

Mr Talbot also cast doubt over Mrs Adams’s claim to have debts of more than £150,000, incurred in loans and investments. He said that in reality this money represented the return of funds that her husband had given his associates to conceal.

Mrs Adams rejected the prosecution claims and told Mr Talbot she was simply spending more than she possessed. “I obviously live above my means. What else can I say?” she told the court.

She said acting had only earned her £8,000 to £9,000 in recent years, and her interior design and clothing businesses had also failed to generate much income.

She had employed her husband as creative designer for her clothes firm N1 Angel despite his lack of experience or qualifications, because “I can see how Terry dresses well”. Mr Talbot insisted, however, that the firm was not a “legitimate business”, and told Mrs Adams that it was “just an example of you and Terry trying to make it look as if you had a legitimate income”. She denied his assertion.

The latest exchanges, at the High Court yesterday, follow testimony from Adams in which he said that he felt “like a ponce” for living off his wife’s earnings.

Prosecutors allege that Adams has hidden wealth, and are opposing his application for a “certificate of inadequacy” that would allow his debt to be written off or reduced.

The hearing continues.

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