Accused director says 'I lied but did not defraud'

Liban Mohammed Yousif, who ran the City Wide Learning centre in Sheffield, also admitted he had not declared the bulk of his income to HM Revenue and Customs and had therefore avoided paying thousands of pounds in tax.

Yousif said he lied during a police interview in an attempt to keep a lucrative Home Office contract to run citizenship tests but that did not mean he had been a party to fraud.

After City Wide was raided by South Yorkshire Police in February 2007, Yousif told detectives his co-director and co-accused Mustafa Yassin had been present when online tests were running and Yassin had invigilated them in line with the contract rules.

Yesterday he told Sheffield Crown Court that was not true and that he had used Yassin's password to log candidates onto computers to take the tests and had left them alone without anyone invigilating.

Yousif said: "It's a breach of contract but under no circumstances is it a fraud and under no circumstances did we falsify any test.

"I lied (because) I didn't want to lose those contracts. If the University for Industry and Home Office realised we were using each other's passwords those contracts would be terminated straightaway."

The University for Industry sub-contracted Life In The UK tests to over 100 centres around the country on behalf of the Home Office. The tests cost 34 to take legitimately but the court has heard a series of witnesses say they paid middle men hundreds of pounds to obtain false pass certificates from City Wide.

Yousif told the court five people had arrived at City Wide to take the online test on the day the centre was raided by police. The prosecution allege seven people were registered to take the test that day but none were there when officers went in.

He insisted five people had arrived to take the test and did not know what happened to them when the police raid went in.

Yousif is one of three City Wide directors who are charged, along with three other men, of conspiring to defraud the UK Border Agency between October 2005 and February 2007 by arranging for false pass certificates to be bought by immigrants who could then use them to formally apply for citizenship.

The two other directors, Abdi Rashid Yusuf and Mustafa Yassin, the centre's administrator, Mubarak Yusuf, alleged middle men Mehmet Ince and Halil Dari, and Yousif all deny the charge.

Two other middle men, Mohamad Jafari and Shpetim Ymeri, have pleaded guilty to the offence.

The trial continues.