The man accused of stealing Spongebob the squirrel monkey from Chessington World of Adventures last July described himself as an animal lover when he appeared in Kingston Crown Court today.

Marlon Brown, 23, from Bowater Close in Brixton, denies stealing Spongebob but admits he was with a group of around seven friends who broke into the monkey enclosure at Chessington on July 16 last year.

He told the court that he had just been "following the crowd" when he and his friends climbed over the gate into the zoo area of the park at around 5.30pm after spending the day on the rides.

According to Crown Prosecution lawyer Michael Collis, the group then forced open some of the mesh panels in the fence surrounding the squirrel monkey enclosure, entered the cage and picked up Spongebob, who had been hand-reared and was used to human contact. The monkey was then put in Mr Brown's rucksack.

Giving evidence, Mr Brown said: "I was watching the spider monkeys and then I saw two of my friends coming out of the squirrel monkey enclosure with the monkey in my bag that they had taken from me earlier."

He added: "I then saw my passport and my keys on the floor inside the enclosure that had come out of my bag so I lent in through the hole to get them, but then a monkey jumped on my back and when I tried to brush it off it bit my thumb."

The group then left the park and drove back to Brixton with Spongebob in the bag, and dropped Mr Brown off at his home.

According to Spongebob's keeper Maria Bedock and Head of Mammals Sonia Freeman, who both gave evidence, when the zoo staff returned to the park the following morning they discovered seven of the monkeys had escaped through the hole on to the enclosure roof. When a headcount was carried out, they found Spongebob was missing.

When police arrived at the zoo, they found a small amount of blood inside the enclosure that was later matched to Mr Brown.

Miss Freeman told the court that Spongebob is a Bolivian Squirrel Monkey who was hand-reared in South Africa and only arrived at Chessington in April 2006 as part of a breeding programme. She said that Spongebob would have been worth around £2000 on the black market.

Three days after the theft, Spongebob was handed into Brixton police station by an unknown man who claimed to have found the monkey in a playground on the Notre Dame estate in Clapham.

Mr Brown told the jury that he had repeatedly told his friends to return Spongebob to the zoo because, as an animal lover, he was worried the monkey would die, but his friends told him "it's all just fun and games."

Cross-examining Mr Brown in the witness box, Mr Collis asked him if he had tried to stop his friends leaving the park with the monkey, but Mr Brown refused to answer.

Mr Brown has so far also refused to tell police who else was involved in the theft because he was worried his mother and sister, who both live in Brixton, would be targeted in revenge. He told the court that he had never discussed stealing the monkey with his friends before they went to Chessington and that the monkey had never been in his possession.

The trial continues.