VAJA: MET POLICE WORKER SOLD LOST PROPERTY FORMS FOR £20
A Metropolitan Police worker is facing jail after admitting tampering with prosecution evidence.
Babulal Vaja, 59, was stationed at Southall Police Station, west London, when he also sold lost property forms to members of the public.
He admitted a series of charges spanning a two year period when he appeared at Southwark Crown Court for the first day of his trial.
Karen Robinson, prosecuting, said the civilian worker engaged in three kinds of criminal activity.
The first charge relates to the ‘sale of lost property forms to the community’ on or before December 3, 2009, said the barrister.
According to one witness said he paid ‘£20 which was taken from him in respect of a lost property form’.
She added: ‘We say similar sums of money were paid for particular forms provided by Vaja.’
Another man made a statement that ‘he was to receive a lost property form in relation to a lost passport’.
The second charge states on or before June 21, 2009, Vaja ‘accessed information held on the Metropolitan Police database, relating to Manish Gohill and his suspected criminal activity’ and that such activity was ‘for purposes other than those authorised by the Metropolitan Police.’
The prosecutor said he was also ‘consulted and approached by a number of individuals’ before filling out forms called Notices of Intended Prosecution.
Three charges of ‘doing acts tending or intended to pervert the course of public justice’, state that between August 12 2007 and November 30 2009, he made false declarations on the NIP forms regarding the identities of drivers of three cars.
The matters which he distorted related to a Mazda on August 13 2007, a Vauxhall on March 16 2009, and and a Ford Transit van on October 18 2009.
The barrister added: ‘False documents were then submitted to the relevant police force.’
Charles Shelton, defending Vaja, said he had submitted a basis of plea on behalf of his client but some areas of the prosecution case remained in dispute.
Judge David Higgins said: ‘The extent to which he was receiving financial reward for his misconduct plainly must play some part in the sentence.’
Vaja, of Park Avenue, Southall, admitted two counts of misconduct in a public office and three charges of perverting the course of justice.
Co-defendant Surinder Singh, 40, of Scotts Road, Southall, admitted the second misconduct charge faced by Vaja
The judge bailed the pair pending sentence on October 21.
Santokh Lalli, 55, of Everest Road, Stanwell, Staines, Middx, and 34-year-old Gurdeep Singh, of Ellison Gardens, Southall, each denied a count of perverting the course of justice and were cleared by the judge after the prosecution offered no evidence.
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