A fat-busting product sold by a Birmingham businessman and his doctor wife which promised to melt away flab left a woman permanently disfigured, a court was told.

Duncan Williams (51), and his wife Dr Yelena Watkins marketed the soya bean extract lipostabil under the name Flabjab as an alternative to liposuction.

They boasted staggering results and ignored demands to stop selling the unlicensed product as they made up almost £300,000 selling consultations at £250 a time, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The product has been used to unblock veins and arteries in German hospitals but the authorities there specified it should not be used as an injection.

When investigators tracked down some of the women who had undergone the treatment, they found two had suffered allergic reactions to the jab.

"In one case it was a short term allergic reaction," said John Law, prosecuting.

"In another case a woman had a severe allergic reaction. She sets out in her statement that she is permanently disfigured."

Williams, of Fermoy House, Sheppley Road, Rubery, admitted as director of the firm Lipomed Ltd two charges of marketing the product without authority. His barrister admitted two charges on behalf of the company.

The court was told Dr Watkins offered the Flabjab treatment at clinics in Chesterfield, Cardiff and at The Mill in Radcliffe Road, Birmingham.

Flabjab was promoted on magazines and the internet and Dr Watkins featured on Channel 4's Richard and Judy Show, the court heard.

But in 2004 the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority wrote to the couple ordering them to stop using the product.

Williams said he had taken legal advice and the Flabjab was a 'treatment' and not a 'medical product' and he could continue selling it.

In October of the following year the authority seized some of the product.

"Mr Williams' statement put forward a position that he believed what he was doing was in line with EU policy on free movement of goods," Mr Law said.

Dr Watkins died in a car accident in November 2006 when a lorry ploughed across the central reservation of the M5 and into her car.

Her husband broke his ankle in another serious accident and has been on morphine every since.

Adjourning the case to August to allow a compensation claim to be made against Williams, who was described as having a "substantial home", Judge Martin Stephens said: "I am prepared to state there will be financial penalties in this case."