A PEARL-ENCRUSTED mouse took centre stage in a courtroom yesterday as an antiques dealer went on trial.

A jury will decide whether the 200-year-old gold clockwork rodent, spotted in London, was the same one that was stolen six years before from County Durham's Bowes Museum.

The prosecution says that photographs taken of the two-inch long intricate mechanical mouse at the museum in Barnard Castle can help prove it is the same one.

The court heard claims that when antique dealer and master craftsman Kenneth Markworth came into possession of it, he must have known it was stolen.

But Mr Markworth, 50, from Chailey, near Lewes, Sussex, told police it was not the same mouse.

He insisted he had bought it legitimately and in good faith up to nine years before the Bowes mouse was stolen. He denies handling stolen goods.

Christopher Donnellan, prosecuting, gave the jury at Luton Crown Court a potted history of Bowes Museum, and of the mouse.

It was almost certainly made in Switzerland and bought by Josephine Bowes for £22 in May 1871.

Although rarely seen in action, it moves round in circles, and stands on its hind legs and wags its tail.

Mr Donnellan said that in April 1994 the mouse went missing from its display case. At the time it was valued at £30,000.

While he told the court the exact date it came into Mr Markworth's hands was not known, he said that in February 1998 the dealer sold it to another collector for just £8,000.

The mouse, which sits in its box in court as Exhibit One, was later sold to SJ Phillips in London for £45,000. The auction house then attempted to sell it with a price tag of £90,000.

But in March last year, news got back to the Bowes Museum that a mouse similar to its stolen one was in London.

Former museum curator Elizabeth Conran told the court she had examined the mouse and compared it with photographs taken at various stages of its life.

She said during the six years since its disappearance there had been two false alarms when mechanical mice probably of a similar origin had been located, but had been ruled out as the missing Bowes mouse for various reasons.

The case continues.