Four men and a woman will stand trial this week, accused of siphoning nearly £200,000 out of Ricky Gervais’s bank account.

The gang allegedly forged The Office star’s passport before wiring the money out of his account early last year.

Prosecutors will claim they were planning to buy gold bullion with the money, as well as £123,000 from a consultant from Wales and £30,000 from another businessman.

The defendants – a Natwest call centre worker, three employees of a gold bullion courier company, and a jobless man – all deny conspiracy to defraud.

They appear in London’s Wood Green Court tomorrow.

The defendants are: homeless Kenneth Speight, 39; Sharonjeet Snobber, 28, of Southampton; Mushtaq Javed, 43, of Crawley, West Sussex; Craig Reeves, 28, of Alton, Hampshire; and Harry Peach, 57, of Leatherhead, Surrey.