A couple’s household was awash with cash as they lived the high life on £2.3 million stolen from a laundry equipment company.

Julie and Anthony Nickerson’s lavish lifestyle included purchasing a £500,000 house with five acres of land, spending almost £194,000 on holidays and £85,947 on a Mercedes car each.

They have been warned they may go to prison when they are sentenced at Bradford Crown Court by Recorder Anthony Hawks on May 2.

Julie Nickerson, 55, pleaded guilty in December last year to stealing £2.3 million from JLA between 2005 and December 2012 when she was made redundant.

At that hearing, the Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, told her: “The sort of value of this case opens the prison door, I’m afraid.”

Julie Nickerson worked in the accounts and finance department at the Halifax-based firm that supplies commercial laundry equipment.

She also admitted money laundering and fraud in relation to a false representation made to HM Customs and Excise.

Yesterday, her husband Anthony Nickerson, 48, pleaded guilty to laundering £924,190 of the stolen cash, between July 2009 and December 2012, on the day he was to stand trial.

Anthony Nickerson, who ran Wade House Newsagents, in Wade House Road, Shelf, turned a blind eye to his wife’s dishonesty, the court heard.

The judge told him he would receive a maximum sentence of two and a half years’ imprisonment.

He was rebailed with the condition that he lives at an address in Halifax, reports to the police every Sunday and does not apply for travel documents.

Prosecutor Nick Askins said the couple’s passports had been confiscated and the newsagents business where they were living was up for sale.

Julie Nickerson, who came to court voluntarily yesterday, sobbed loudly when the judge asked her to come into the public gallery to hear the bail conditions.

Recorder Hawks told Anthony Nickerson: “You have now had the good sense to plead guilty on an acceptable basis to these allegations against you.”

He went on: “Please do not assume that because I am adjourning for a probation report that means you are not going to prison.”

The Crown says the couple’s lavish lifestyle, using the stolen money, included buying almost £17,000 of film memorabilia at Christie’s auction house and spending £10,000 on attending motorsports events at Silverstone.