A POLICE worker who cancelled tickets for his friends has been jailed for 10 months.

Zaheer Patel, 22, of May Street, off Audley Range, Blackburn, was told by a judge he had committed a ‘gross breach of trust’.

Patel, who was also a steward at Blackburn Rovers, cancelled eight fixed penalty notices while working at the central processing unit for Lancashire Constabulary, based in Guide.

The court heard he had made no financial gain and he had been ‘easily influenced’ by his friends’.

The tickets had been issued for a range of offences, including a £60 fine for not wearing a seatbelt, driving whilst using a mobile phone and driving without insurance.

Prosecutors told the court Patel ‘clearly abused the system’ and only stopped when he was caught.

Patel was arrested on July 21 and quit his job on November 18, 2010, when he was first charged with the offences.

After the case, Lancashire police’s’ head of professional standards, Detective Superintendent Martyn Leveridge said the force was satisfied with the sentence.

He said: “It is essential that individuals perform their duties with honesty and integrity, common sense and sound judgement.

“I would like to reassure the public that unacceptable behaviour by staff is not tolerated and that we will vigorously investigate allegations to ensure high standards are consistently met.

“It is testament to the quality of the investigation that Patel pleaded guilty to the charges at an early stage.”

At Preston Crown Court yesterday, Patel admitted eight count of perverting the course of justice between September 2009 and July 2010 over the cancelled tickets.

Patel, who also pleaded guilty to possessing a false ID document - namely a fake driving licence, was ordered to pay £850 in costs.

His friend who had a ticket cancelled, Looqman Mulla, 27, of Belgrave Close, Blackburn, admitted one charge of perverting the course of justice was given an eight-week suspended sentence. He was also ordered to undertake 150 hours unpaid work, obey a curfew, and pay £250 in costs.

Judge Norman Wright, told Patel: “These are extremely serious offences and the fact that you cancelled these tickets means that justice did not take its course.

“It was a gross breach of trust and it only came to an end when you were detected.

“I have to send a message out to the public that this will not be tolerated and your former co-workers need to know that this is what will happen if you transgress.”

Patel first started working for the central processing unit in 2005.

Colleagues became suspicious in July 2010 when he asked his colleague, Samia Patel, for his password claiming that he was experiencing technical problems.

Samia Patel, became suspicious and alerted the line manager at the unit.

After further investigation by staff at the centre they found that Patel had used two of his colleagues’ passwords to gain access into a computer system to cancel some of the tickets.

The court heard that Patel had claimed that he had cancelled the tickets whilst under duress as he was being threatened by members of his local community.

Philip Andrews, representing Patel, said: “Various people in his community were aware of the job that he did and the position that he was in and he started getting approaches from people asking him to cancel tickets for their friends.

“At first he said no and he bowed down to the pressure and committed his first offence feeling a huge sense of guilt.

“He did it to shut these people up but once he got on the treadmill it happened again.

“He did it for people he knew in the community because he is mild-mannered and easily influenced.

“He is ashamed of himself as he has lost his reputation and this has left a stain on his character for the rest of his life.”.