A notorious crime boss today told a judge that he feels “like a ponce” living off his wife despite claims that he has been using his criminal profits to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Terry Adams, the head of a north London crime gang, told the High Court that he had been treated to four meals at the Ivy, a visit to the Dorchester Hotel for a massage and a dozen trips to Brown’s in Mayfair.

He also admitted three visits to the Royal Opera House since his release from jail sentences for money laundering and breaking a financial reporting order — but he claimed he was still too poor to pay a £750,000 confiscation order imposed for the laundering.

He told the court that he was working unpaid for his wife as a “creative” clothes designer and was “frustrated” by his lack of income. He said: “The only source of income I get is from my wife. I feel like a ponce. I get frustrated because I’m not bringing in any money. She’s the breadwinner. It’s difficult for me. It causes no end of arguments in our flat. It doesn’t stop.”

Adams appeared at the High Court wearing a bright blue suit that he said he had designed himself. He is trying to have all or part of his outstanding debt to the taxpayer — more than £600,000 — written off on the grounds of poverty.

He owes the money following his conviction in 2007 for conspiring to conceal the proceeds of crime and was accused at today’s hearing of having hidden funds that he is using to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Prosecuting barrister Kennedy Talbot said that Adams usually travelled in a BMW or Mercedes and with the trips to the opera and other establishments he and his wife Ruth had run up a £15,000 bill — with another £5,000 spent last year on a trip to China for Mrs Adams and their daughter.

Giving evidence, Adams said “I love opera” and claimed he had been treated to two of the ROH visits by his wife and the third by his sister-in-law’s boyfriend. The restaurant trips had also been paid for by others and he had not gone “out of my choosing” because he preferred to go out locally.

Adams also told the court that he was a “creative designer”, which was his “one love”, and was now designing clothes after struggling to find work as a jewellery designer.

He said that he created his clothes, including the suit he was wearing, by looking at magazines and “tweaking” the designs to create his own products. He added that magazines such as GQ had “fashion, but no style” and that his designs included “three button 60s style” suits.

Adams also told how he had previously been taken on for a £25,000 a year job designing jewellery, but said that the “intense” scrutiny applied to him by the authorities had “frightened off” employers in London’s Hatton Garden, which was a “secretive place” where “strangers” such as probation officers were not welcome.

Responding to his claims for the prosecution, Mr Talbot said that Adams’ employment was simply a device to mask the transfer of his own hidden funds back to the gangster. He said no jewellery designed by Adams for the company which had employed him had been sold and there were similar doubts about his abilities as a clothes designer.

Adams' latest court appearance today follows an earlier conviction at Westminster magistrates of breaching a financial reporting order imposed alongside the original seven year jail sentence he received in 2007.

The order required the crime boss, whose gang has been nicknamed “The Adams Family”, to report all spending over £500 to the Serious Organised Crime Agency for 10 years. Prosecutors revealed he flouted the order repeatedly by using hidden funds for expensive purchases made on his behalf by his wife or other associates.

His lawyer told that hearing that Adams, who claims to have ended his criminal activities, was a “broken man” living off the legal and “dwindling” capital of his wife.

But the judge called him a “calculating” man who had tried to evade the financial curbs imposed on him.