Businessman paid for property fittings 'did not carry out work'

Tariq Mahmood said he had recommended Keith Trout to a fellow magistrate Salima Hafejee, with whom he was having an affair at that time, and was aware he had fitted railings and a gate at her home in Highfield Crescent, Bradford, for her.

“She said her grandchild was growing up next door to neighbours who had a big dog, she was a bit scared and wanted to get them put up,” he told Leeds Crown Court.

The prosecution claims that Hafejee stole the 1,400 cost of the installation from a charitable organisation, the Ali Academy, by getting a cheque signed for Mr Trout, pretending on the invoice it was for work which had been done at the organisation’s headquarters in Nessfield Street, Bradford owned by Mr Mahmood.

Hafejee, 44, who received an OBE last year for services to the community, denies theft and two charges of fraud.

Mr Mahmood told the jury his affair with Hafejee lasted from April 1996 to December 2007. He had become involved in voluntary work after meeting up with her and helped 29 young people into full time employment in the motor trade after a project with other organisations at his garage in Bradford.

At the end of 2004 he bought the premises in Nessfield Street and began to refurbish them with the help of European grants.

The Bradford Youth Development Partnership(BYDP) of which Hafejee was a director eventually rented some of the building.

He said during the affair they saw each other regularly and went away to Tunisia, Egypt, Jamaica, France and Scotland.

“She’d tell her husband we were on a course. Basically it was a cover up so we could spend time together. I saw her probably every day and if we didn’t she would ring me.”

He told the jury she wanted to run her own organisation and make it bigger than the BYDP because she did not get on with some of the people there, so he and she and two others, started the Ali Academy to help young people, and based it in the ground floor of the building.

He told Nick Worsley prosecuting he had nothing to do with the payment of the invoice to Mr Trout from Ali funds.

He agreed it was after the affair had ended and he was prosecuted in the magistrates court for a common assault following an incident involving a male friend of Hafejee’s, that it was his allegations against her which led to the investigation.

Cross-examined by Imran Khan, defending Hafejee, Mr Mahmood said her idea of running her own organisation had been discussed for a long time. “It was pillow talk,” he said.

He denied the Ali Academy was “his baby” taking the name from his admiration for Muhammed Ali. “Salima told me her son had come up with the name,” he said. The trial continues.