British woman faces three years in prison over bizarre wine heist compared to 'Scooby Doo episode'

Ray gave a false name, used disguises and an overcoat with secret compartments as part of her plot to steal thousands of dollars worth of wine from L’Auberge Provençale inn and restaurant, located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

Ray committed the robbery last November, when her and her alleged partner in crime, Krndija, a Serbian national, arrived at the restaurant located roughly 60 miles away from the US capital.

Pretending to be the assistant of a wealthy businessman, Ray wore a wig and gave a false name, telling the restaurant owners her boss wanted to book a dinner at the dining establishing for 25 people, hoping to spend $20,000 (£15,000).

After asking if the restaurant's cellar was temperature controlled, the disguised pair descended down to the basement where Ray distracted the wine director, Christian Borel.

Meanwhile, Krndija allegedly stole four bottles of wine, one of which being a $24,000 (£18,000) 2020 Romanée-Conti Burgundy.

CCTV from the cellar shows a man, allegedly Krndija stashing the expensive bottles in his coat pocket.

The man in the video, allegedly Krndija, who remains at large after boarding a flight to Vienna from New York the day after the theft, replaced the pocketed expensive bottles, with cheap decoy ones.

However, Mr Borel noticed the switch and altered staff, with a waiter tackling Ray in the restaurant's car park whilst her accomplice fled the scene.

Two of the stolen bottles were recovered outside the restaurant, but the four most valuable remained missing.

However, two bottles, including the £18,000 Romanée-Conti, were returned five months later when they were delivered to Ray's defence lawyer's office by an unidentified man described as having an Eastern European accent, who police believe may have been Krndija.

However, the restaurant's owners said the returned wines effectively lost most of their value as there was no way of verifying how they had been stored during the 145 days they had been missing.

Prosecutors in the US sought a three-year prison sentence for Ray, arguing the theft had been meticulously planned, but she is expected to receive credit for around six months already served in custody.

Co-owner Celeste Borel said: "They were investments to me. They're almost worthless now."

Her husband Alain added: "Nobody is going to pay $24,000 not knowing how the wine was kept."

Ray's defence lawyer Eric Angel described the case as the most unusual he had ever handled, saying: "The whole case was strange. The wigs. The coat with specially sewn pockets. The return of the bottles. It was like an episode of Scooby-Doo."

Prosecutor Matthew Bass told the court: "This was a planned-out heist. They parked the car down the road, they wore disguises. They called ahead. They knew what they were after."

In mitigation, Ray's lawyers told the court she had no previous criminal record and had been described as "an upstanding and productive member of society in England".

Before the heist, Ray had lived in Herne Bay, Kent, where she ran the Bay View Guest House, but had fallen into financial difficulty.

Court filings stated that before moving to Kent, she had run a charity for orphans in a region affected by the Balkan refugee crisis.

Ray had later enrolled in higher education at the age of 45, earning a first-class degree in creative writing at Canterbury Christ Church University before completing a master's degree at the University of Kent in 2019.

Her lawyers also told the court she had spent the past decade battling a rare blood cancer and had continued chemotherapy treatment throughout her time in custody.

Ray had been living with her disabled mother and two sons, aged 25 and 27, before travelling to the United States, telling neighbours she was going on a cruise.

She is likely to face deportation to Britain once her sentence is complete.