Three lapdancers and their manager kidnapped a club boss after he failed to pay them more than £42,000, a court has been told.
The women had been hired to work at a pop-up nightclub to provide entertainment for customers during the famous Cheltenham Festival in March 2012.
Local businessman Curtis Woodman had rented the Embassy Club in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, to provide “entertainment” for racegoers over a five-day period.
DJ Charlotte Devaney, 34, from London, arranged a number of girls to work as hostesses and dancers at the club.
Bristol Crown Court heard the club failed to secure a lapdancing licence and girls signed contracts agreeing they would wear “bikinis and nipple tassels at all times”.
But when the club opened some of the girls, who paid £150 per night to work there, “insisted on taking their clothes off” and it was shut down by officials.
The girls had earned “considerable amounts of money” during the three nights – including £42,000 from one customer – but Mr Woodman refused to pay them, the court heard.
Devaney spent months chasing Mr Woodman for the “debt” before visiting a police station in Cheltenham on September 3, where she was advised to take civil action.
Later that day, Devaney, along with dancers Mandy Cool, 29, Stephanie Pye, 31, and Rachel Goodchild, 24, met with brothers Alexander, 23, and Robert Morris, 27.
The group headed to Mr Woodman’s work in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, in two cars, where they “kidnapped him”, the jury of seven men and five women was told.
Mr Wodman was urged to hand over an expensive watch and arrange a bank transfer before he was later released with threats that if he didn’t pay the rest of the money, they would be back.
Devaney, from London; Pye, from Sutton Coldfield; Cool, of Southampton; and Goodchild, of Southampton, each deny a charge of kidnap on September 3 2012.
The trial, in front of judge Geoffrey Mercer, continues.