POLICE believed Lancashire County Council leader Geoff Driver was sending emails to senior officials of the authority designed to ‘intimidate, belittle and undermine them’ as witnesses in a corruption investigation, court documents show.

Details of the May 2017 warrants to raid his home and those of three others in a probe into the discontinued One Connect partnership between the county council and BT have been published by the High Court in London.

Revealed for the first time are police claims that Cllr Driver was using private emails to communicate with former County Hall chief executive Phil Halsall, David McElhinney (chief executive of the now defunct One Connect) and Ged Fitzgerald, the former Lancashire County Council chief executive.

A judgement by Lord Justice Peter Gross and Judge Andrew Nicol states that the overall ‘Operation Sheridan’ involving the arrest and bailing until May 22 of the four men is ‘an underlying investigation into corruption in local government’.

It dismisses an attempt by Mr Fitzgerald to overturn a warrant to arrest him and search his home as part of inquiries into allegations the four conspired to pervert the course of justice.

The documents show that Judge Robert Altham was persuaded ‘the nature and the persistence of the criticism’ of Lancashire County Council’s senior lawyer Ian Young by Mr Driver ‘did show reasonable grounds for believing that Mr Driver had been putting pressure on an inconvenient witness - so that could be fed into the grounds for believing that the offence of conspiracy to pervert had been shown’.

It said Judge Altham ‘was persuaded that there was ample evidence of this offence having been committed’.

It adds: “He concluded from this that it indicated that ‘Mr Driver is in cahoots with the others, providing not only information but also providing challenge to people who can cause difficulties in the course of this investigation’.”

The original police application for the warrants, upheld by the High Court, said: “Evidence has now been gathered which shows that between 2013 and 2015, Mr Driver in collusion with Philip Halsall, Mr David McElhinney and Gerard Fitzgerald, was involved in activity directed toward a number of principal witnesses which was clearly designed to intimidate, belittle and undermine them both professionally and, crucially, as witnesses in the investigation.”

Judge Altham also decided in respect of the police investigations: “There had been previous examples of attempts to cover tracks.”

These included the use of private emails by the four, including Cllr Driver, to communicate; the ‘wiping’ of data from computers, iPads and iPhones belonging to Mr McElhinney; and a claim by the police that there had been ‘wilful and deliberate acts by Mr Halsall and Mr McElhinney to use Mr Driver as a source of information’.

The original complaint to the police by Mr Young alleged ‘a deliberate and concerted campaign to intimidate him as a key witness in both criminal and on-going civil proceedings linked to the criminal case.’

The judgement adds: “Our conclusion is strictly confined to the application for permission to apply for judicial review; we have and express no view as to the ultimate outcome of the investigation or as to any prosecution which might result.”

It also states: “Arrest and detention were the only means of depriving the suspects of the opportunity of collusion; voluntary attendance would not do.” Lancashire Police declined to comment as did the county council. Cllr Driver was unavailable for comment.