A FORMER champion bodybuilder was secretly recorded by an undercover police officer as he spilled the beans on his drug dealing and his infidelity.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court yesterday listened through headphones to the months of secretly-taped conversations that award-winning bodybuilder Martin Yates-Brown had with an undercover policeman who called himself Alan.

Listening in the witness box was Mr Yates-Brown - who was referred to as Marty.

The jury heard how he was photographed by hidden cameras when he turned up for meetings with the undercover detective, who said he wanted to buy 50 kilos of cannabis per fortnight from the drugs gang Mr Yates-Brown represented.

Mr Yates-Brown has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs between March 1998 and September 1999. He is the chief prosecution witness against six alleged gang members.

The court heard him boasting about his successes with women at a singles night in Leigh, Greater Manchester - and telling how he had dumped a Cher-lookalike singer from Liverpool.

He said that when he was away from home, he always rang his wife at midnight - but how he had had a woman with him when he made the call the previous night.

He told how the gang's drugs came into the North-East from Holland, and how they had been ripped off by some customers, which had personally cost him £9,000.

Mr Yates-Brown, who ran ten gyms in the North-East, Scotland and Greater Manchester, joked that he was opening another in County Durham - putting emphasis on the fact it was to be "in a place called Crook".

He was also taped at a meeting at the Scotch Corner Hotel.

Pleading not guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs, are Raymond Bell,57, of Eskdale Terrace, Whitley Bay, North Tyneside; Colin Dunn,62, of Hollywood Avenue, Gosforth, Newcastle; John Tansey, 35, of Scira Court, Darlington; John Churchill, 29, of Glasgow; Charles Hardie, 44, of Armidale, Scotland, and Clive Jefferson, 34, of Woodside Avenue, Cockermouth, Cumbria.

Wayne Johns, 21, of Dunrobin Close, Darlington, pleads not guilty to possession with intent to supply.

The trial continues.