The owner of a Croydon bakery has landed herself in trouble after misusing bread baskets.

Sole shareholder and director of Passion Bakery, Myroslava Goncharova agreed to enter a court order after it was found she had been withholding the baking equipment from its rightful owner, Bakers Basco.

During an injunction hearing at Croydon County Court on April 6, Ms Goncharova promised to the court that she would return all of the equipment by April 20.

The defendant also agreed to provide Bakers Basco access to their business from time to time, for inspection purposes.

Steve Millward, general manager at Bakers Basco said the company was "set up to allow the members of our scheme to transport bread safely, cost-effectively and in an environmentally-friendly way.

"When people divert them for their own use, it has a knock-on effect on the bakers that pay to license them."

But a promise to give back bread baskets wasn't all that was heard at the court.

During the same hearing the court heard how Bakers Basco had already secured a restraining injunction against Dler Abbas Ismail and his Croydon company New Tasty Bakery.

It then came as a shock to learn that Ms Goncharova was Mr Ismail's common law wife.

The court dismissed requests to set that judgement aside in this case

Mr Millward said the defendant should have known better.

“Despite having already experienced the consequences of an earlier case with New Tasty Bakery, which involved significant costs and damages, here we are again having to pursue legal action with none other than the defendant’s common law wife," he said.

"We can only hope that the lesson has now been learned to prevent Ms Goncharova or, indeed Mr Ismail, from misappropriating any of Bakers Basco or our membership’s bakery equipment moving forward.”

If Ms Goncharova fails to keep her promises to the court then financial sanctions could be imposed against both the company and her and she could even face a stint in prison.