A Russian spy was living in a “typical seaside hotel” on the English coast crammed full of electronic surveillance equipment, a court has heard.

Orlin Roussev boasted to his controller that he was becoming like the James Bond character “Q” as he prepared his spying “toys” for kidnap and surveillance operations across Europe.

He is said to have taken instructions from a handler called Jan Marsalek, who is wanted in connection with a £1.6bn tech fraud linked to a company called Wirecard.

Roussev, 46, a Bulgarian national, has pleaded guilty to running a spy ring on behalf of the Russians, but three other members of the group deny the charges.

The Old Bailey was told a “vast” amount of technical equipment for “intrusive surveillance” was found at Roussev’s address in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, which he described in messages as his “Indiana Jones warehouse”.

The Haydee guest house on Prince’s Road had 33 rooms according to Dan Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting.

Inside three of them was a “significant amount of IT and surveillance equipment”. It was stacked up in two storage rooms and an office used by Roussev, the court was told.

The jury heard that Operation Skirp seized 3,540 exhibits from a number of addresses, including 1,650 digital exhibits, and was shown two “IMSI grabbers” – a black metal box capable of capturing mobile phone numbers from a nearby area.

Both devices were described as “law enforcement grade” and could be used to intercept or disrupt targeted mobile phone communications and to identify an individual phone by their IMSI and IMEI numbers, in conjunction with a direction-finding unit.

The spies planned to use them outside a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, to gather information from the phones of Ukrainian servicemen who were being trained to operate Patriot missile defence batteries, the prosecution said.

The information would have allowed them to track the servicemen back to Ukraine and identify where the missiles were fired from, but the plan was foiled when the men were arrested in February last year.

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Gadgets with hidden cameras part of evidence

Other findings included pendant necklaces with hidden cameras, water bottles with mobile phone-linked video surveillance capability, a Pandora car key cloning device, and more traditional surveillance equipment such as night vision binoculars and mobile radios.

The spy ring’s members allegedly included Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab assistant from Harrow, North London, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician from Acton, West London, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator from Enfield.

Roussev and Biser Dzhambazov – a 43-year-old man from London who is also an alleged member of the ring – have both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collect information useful to an enemy.

Gaberova, Ivanova, and Ivanchev all deny the charges and the trial continues. All five are Bulgarian nationals with “settled status” in the UK.

More equipment – including a black cap with a concealed camera and a one-litre plastic Coke bottle with waterproof camera behind the label – was found in the lounge at a North London flat shared by Ivanova and Dzhambazov, the trial has heard.

The trial continues.

The Met Office has put yellow weather warnings over snow and ice in place from this afternoon covering much of the UK.

It had a number of yellow warnings in place on Thursday across the country, but most were initially set to expire by 11am, with only a snow and ice alert in Scotland remaining until midnight.

But it has now updated its map to show yellow ice warnings for much of the Midlands, North West England, Eastern England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 4pm on Thursday until 10am on Friday, while the snow and ice warning for Scotland has been extended to 10am on Friday.

A separate yellow warning for ice is in force from 3am on Friday until 11am, covering South West England and parts of South Wales.

It comes as large swathes of the country deal with disruption caused by the freezing weather, with temperatures expected to fall as low as -16C on Thursday night both in the northeast of England and Scotland, the Met Office has said.

Manchester Airport has warned passengers of delays after temporarily closing its runways due to “significant levels of snow”.

In a statement on Thursday morning, the airport said: “Our runways are temporarily closed due to significant levels of snow, as our teams work hard to clear them as quickly as possible.”

The airport announced its runways had reopened at 10am, but warned “as a result of the earlier closure, some departures and arrivals may still experience delays”.

“The safety of our passengers remains our top priority. Thank you for your understanding and patience,” it added.

The A30 in Cornwall was closed westbound between the A3047 junctions Avers and Tolvaddon on Thursday morning following a multiple vehicle collision, according to National Highways, after an amber warning for snow and ice was in place yesterday.

It said at 8.45am that emergency services were at the scene while traffic built on the roads.

Devon and Cornwall Police and Devon County Council Highways had earlier warned of roads closing and motorists being stationary for “long periods of time” in a joint statement.

Snow ploughs became stuck in queues of traffic caused by “minor incidents”, the statement added.

All of the warnings in place across the country are yellow, meaning there is a danger of injury from slips and falls and some disruption to travel expected.

A yellow warning for snow and ice is in place for the following regions from 4pm on Thursday to 10am on Friday:

• East Midlands
• North West England
• Northern Ireland
• Wales
• West Midlands

Get the forecast for your area

Other yellow warnings which covered much of the country on Thursday morning have now expired.

They included a warning for snow and ice affecting Cornwall, much of Wales and parts of northwest England until 11am, an ice warning for parts of southern England and south-east Wales until 10.30am and a fog warning for Northern Ireland until 9am.

Travel disruption to road and rail services are likely on Thursday in the warning areas, as well as the potential for accidents in icy places, the forecaster said.

As icy conditions persist, motorists are being urged to stick to major roads that are most likely to have been gritted.

Car insurer RAC said it has seen the highest levels of demand for rescues in a three-day period since December 2022.

Former Scotland rugby captain Stuart Hogg has been handed a community payback order and a non-harassment order for abusing his estranged wife over the course of five years.

Hogg, 32, last year pleaded guilty to a single charge of domestic abuse of his ex-partner, Gillian Hogg, between 2019 and 2024.

The sportsman admitted shouting and swearing, tracking her movements and sending her messages which were alarming and distressing in nature.

At Selkirk Sheriff Court on Thursday, he was given a community payback order with one year of supervision and a five-year non-harassment order.

Sheriff Peter Paterson warned Hogg the sentence was an “alternative to custody”.

A court heard how he berated Mrs Hogg for “not being fun” after going on drinking binges with his colleagues, and once sent more than 200 text messages to her in the space of a few hours which caused her to suffer a panic attack.

Hogg had been due to stand trial at Selkirk Sheriff Court last November, but pleaded guilty to the abuse which was said to have taken place at various locations including Hawick in the Scottish Borders and Bearsden in East Dunbartonshire.

At Jedburgh Sheriff Court in December, he was initially handed the five-year non-harassment order and fined £600 for breaching bail conditions by repeatedly contacting Mrs Hogg last June.

The former Glasgow Warriors and Exeter Chiefs, who plays for French club Montpellier, now lives abroad and is said to be in the process of getting a divorce.

Prosecutor Drew Long said the couple moved to Exeter in 2019 with their three young children, who were all under three, but Hogg’s behaviour “deteriorated” as he went out partying.

Mr Long said Hogg would “shout and swear and accuse Mrs Hogg of not being fun” for not joining in drinking, and that her family “noticed a change in her”.

In 2022, Mrs Hogg went on a night out and was bombarded with text messages from the rugby player which “caught the attention of the people she was with”, the prosecutor said.

The following year, the couple moved to Hawick in the Borders, but Hogg used an app to track his wife and “questioned her whereabouts” while she was dropping the children off.

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In 2023, she decided to leave the sportsman and sought advice from a domestic abuse service.

Mr Long said in September of that year, Hogg “sent in excess of 200 texts in a few hours despite being asked to leave her alone”, which led to Mrs Hogg having a panic attack.

On 21 February 2024, police were called due to Hogg “shouting and swearing”.

He was taken into custody and thereafter placed on a bail order stipulating not to contact Mrs Hogg or to enter the family home.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said “no one should have to live in fear of a partner or former partner”.

Lynne Barrie, procurator fiscal for Lothian and Borders, added: “Stuart Hogg has now been convicted and held accountable for subjecting his estranged wife to years of domestic abuse.”

Hogg made his Scotland debut in 2012 and went on to make 100 appearances for his country.

He also made two appearances for the British and Irish Lions and was made an MBE for services to the sport in last year’s New Year Honours list.

Following his guilty plea, Mrs Hogg thanked all those who had shown support.

She praised her family and friends, and also singled out those who had given her “a hi, a smile, a hug or even just a look to show they care”.

Mrs Hogg said she had thought “long and hard” about posting on Facebook, but added: “Now, it’s time to start my next chapter.

“To move on and to keep showing my kids every day that strength comes from unconditional love and support around you, and even when it hurts, love wins.”

Following the court case, Scottish Women’s Aid said coercive control – including stalking and micromanaging how women mother, where they go, what they wear and what they’re allowed to say – can be “more traumatic than a physical assault”.

Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive of the charity, added: “The sentence in this case, like so many handed down in Scotland, hardly meets the test of being proportionate when compared to the harm this man has caused.”