A MAINTENANCE engineer who had been warned about having a "girly calendar" at a Nottingham factory got revenge by spreading peanuts around the site causing £1.2m in lost production, a court heard.

Paul Bentley, 41, of Clifton , went on trial today accused of possessing peanuts to contaminate goods and making threats to kill a member of Pork Farms staff.

He denies the charges.

The site of the alleged contamination with peanuts was Pork Farms Riverside Bakery in The Meadows in July 2007.

The court heard the bakery made 100,000 food products a day for companies like Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer.

Bentley had been spoken to by bakery manager Susan Bolton that month after a girly calendar was found on the wall in the engineering workshop.

Bentley had denied being responsible for putting it there and no formal disciplinary action had been taken against him, the court heard.

On July 12, 2007, a cleaner discovered about 20 nuts on the floor of a locker room.

No nuts are allowed inside the factory and it was "simply a nut free zone" said prosecutor Mark Van Der Zwart.

Bentley, who had clocked in at 7.20am, had come into the area where the cleaner had been and asked her what was happening.

"As soon as she found them [the nuts] she literally stood guard over them before members of human resources were able to arrive," said Mr Van Der Zwart.

As the day progressed, more and more nuts were found in various areas of the factory and by 4pm a decision was taken to stop production.

The prosecution said this was the act of someone deliberately trying to harm the factory and led to it being shut down temporarily.

He said the loss to Pork Farms was £1.2m as a result of lost production.

The defendant had been asked to attend the police station so he could be interviewed about what he knew.

He denied being in possession of any nuts that day.

Proceeding.