Accountant tried to steal £350,000 of public money

A former accountant at the Office of Fair Trading admitted trying to steal more than £350,000 of public money from his employers.

Asif Haque, 38, set up a fictitious company called Data Logic UK and signed off invoices for IT work he falsely claimed had been carried out for the Government department.

He submitted invoices totalling more than 350,000 between February 2008 and July 2008, managing to transfer about 250,000 to his girlfriend Isma Ahmed's bank account.

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Haque, of Harrow, north-west London, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London to 11 counts of fraud and one count of concealing, disguising or transferring criminal property, "namely money which had been fraudulently obtained from the OfT". Recorder Catherine Newman QC adjourned sentencing for reports until March 31.

She granted smartly-dressed Haque bail but told him all options remained open, including imprisonment.

Ahmed, 30, of Ruislip, Middlesex, had been accused of hiding the money in her account but she was formally acquitted by the court yesterday after the prosecution said it would offer no evidence against her.

Tyrone Belger, prosecuting, said it was the Crown's case that Haque was the "principal organiser and architect of the fraud".

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"It would not be in the public interest to prosecute her alone

in the light of the pleas of Haque and in the light of the fact she has always maintained from day one that she was in a relationship with him and had a young child with him and she trusted him," he added.

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