A CORRUPT senior Crown prosecutor who worked in Bristol has admitted pocketing £20,000 to use his position to discontinue a criminal case.

Gwent Crown Prosecution Service trials unit chief Sarfraz Ibrahim, 51, had the power to stop cases in their tracks by recommending whether they should be discontinued or go to trial.

His indiscretions were discovered after an elaborate police sting, in which Ibrahim ended up deliberately discontinuing a fictional case concocted by undercover officers. During the period in question Ibrahim, a lawyer for 19 years, was on secondment from the Avon and Somerset CPS. He was a lawyer manager and Crown advocate in Gwent, regularly prosecuting cases at Cardiff and Newport crown courts.

At Swansea Crown Court, Ibrahim, of Cyncoed, Cardiff, admitted corruption, attempting to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office, between May and August 2009.

The corruption charge states that, as a CPS officer between August 18 and 20 last year, he accepted £20,000 as an inducement to advise a case of assault against an undercover police officer named Nick Baker should not proceed.

He also tried to pervert the course of justice between May 25 and August 20 last year by meeting a man he knew to be on bail and improperly taking steps to become the reviewing lawyer in the case. Despite hearing an apparent confession, he still said the case should not proceed.

The case continues.