A heavy safe containing nothing but paper documents was stolen from an office, a jury heard.

Thieves ransacked the office after breaking in while it was closed for the weekend but the only property stolen was the metal safe.

It was carried out of the offices of RAM Financial Services in London Road, Horsham, with the aid of a wheelbarrow taken from a building site nearby.

The safe was later found abandoned in a playing field in the town.

The back had been forced off and the papers it contained were scattered around.

The jury at Lewes Crown Court was told police believed more than one burglar would have been involved as the safe was too heavy for one person alone to move.

It took three or four men to lift it when it was delivered to the office some years earlier.

The court heard Darion Bates-Lashbrook was arrested after fingerprints matching his were found on a torn envelope in the office.

Bates-Lashbrook, 37, of Henderson Way, Horsham, denies burglary at the office in June last year.

Jeffrey Lamb, prosecuting, told the jury the matching prints were conclusive proof Bates-Lashbrook had been inside the office.

He said: "The Crown say the only reason his fingerprints were found was because he was one of the burglars."

Christopher Reed, a financial adviser who works for the family-run business founded by his father 40 years ago, told the court how the office was left ransacked.

Filing cabinets were forced open, the contents of desk drawers strewn around and documents and envelopes covered the floor.

He said: "I noticed the safe was missing. There was a single tyre mark going through the office.

"It went out of the back door, where a wheelbarrow was abandoned."

When Bates-Lashbrook was interviewed by police he denied any involvement with the burglary.

He said his prints must have been on the envelope, which had contained a bank statement, because he visited the office two or three times as a potential customer.

He had rented the three-storey terraced building in the past.

He said: "I have been in and out of the building in a lawful and legal manner." The trial continues.