The founders of an elite Cardiff college treated its funds "as their own personal piggy bank", a court has heard.

One of its founders, Yasmin Sarwar, is accused of stealing £5m from Cardiff Sixth Form College's accounts. Her ex-husband, Nadeem Sarwar, pleaded guilty to stealing £5m at an earlier hearing.

Mark Cotter KC, prosecuting, told the court the pair set up the college in 2008 and were "paid handsomely" for their roles.

Yasmin Sarwar, who was a director and trustee at the college, denies nine theft and fraud charges and is standing trial at Merthyr Crown Court.

The court heard Yasmin Sarwar, 45, started "taking money that did not belong to her" and "then tried to cover it up".

Opening the case, Cotter said that while her relationship with Nadeem Sarwar may have been "turbulent", the defendant, from Cyncoed, Cardiff, was a "manipulative woman who was a willing participant in the fraudulent activity".

"So committed was she to the draining of college money into her own pocket, she was prepared to set up sham companies to divert huge sums of money away from her husband and overseas once their relationship went sour," said Cotter.

A-level students pay more than £30,000 in annual fees and in excess of £70,000 for boarders at the independent college.

The court heard it was a charitable company that generated "very significant profits running into the millions".

However, according to the prosecution, the pair "raided the funds... to fund their own lavish lifestyles" rather than that money being put to a charitable purpose, as required by the law.

An accountancy firm was appointed to produce and audit its financial statements for the year ending 31 August 2011.

But it notified Companies House that it was unable to do so due to "protracted delays" in accessing information.

The accounts were then handed over to another firm, Sivapalan and Co, by January 2013.

The jury was told staff started to become suspicious by September 2015 when Gareth Collier, who was employed by the college as head of pastoral services, identified "issues with administration and a culture of fear".

Cotter said that following an overseas trip, Collier approached Nadeem Sarwar in October about expenses incurred and was told to "take what he needed" from a brown paper bag filled with cash.

He also noticed bank statements in his office which recorded £25,000 payments with the reference "Naz Agents Commission", the court heard.

In February 2016, Drew Lewis-Robson was asked to takeover running the college's finances.

The prosecution said he "noted irregularities" and on further review "suspected he had uncovered large-scale misappropriation of college funds" by Nadeem and Yasmin Sarwar.

The court heard that, because the college was late submitting financial statements, the Charity Commission announced plans to visit and "inspect their books and records".

It visited by July 2016 and discovered "various areas of concern regarding apparent mismanagement of charitable funds", launched a statutory inquiry and appointed an interim manager at the college, said Cotter.

He said a staff finance assistant also raised questions about a sum of £1.8m "that appeared to her to be missing from the college bank accounts".

She was given two weeks' leave while the commission was on-site, the court heard, and when her employment was terminated Yasmin Sarwar "issued instructions that [she] was to sign a non-disclosure agreement".

Nadeem Sarwar, 50, from Pentwyn, Cardiff, pleaded guilty on 29 September to stealing a total of not less than £5m between 19 February 2008 and 31 October 2016 at a previous hearing.

Ragu Sivapalan, 41, from Penylan, Cardiff, also pleaded guilty to causing an auditor's report on a company's annual accounts to include misleading, false or deceptive information between January 2013 and July 2016.

At the time, he was working for his father's company, Sivapalan and Co, based in Cardiff.

Nadeem Sarwar and Ragu Sivapalan were given bail and are due to be sentenced at a later date.

Yasmin Sarwar's trial continues.