Court clerk is jailed over bribes

18 November 2011 Last updated at 13:11 GMT Munir Yakub Patel was filmed by a newspaper taking the bribe A clerk who took a bribe while working at a London court and became the first person convicted under the Bribery Act has been jailed for six years.

Munir Yakub Patel, 22, worked at Redbridge Magistrates' Court at the time of the incident in August.

Patel, of Green Lane, Dagenham, took £500 to avoid putting details of a traffic summons on a court database.

He admitted one count of bribery but the prosecution believe he earned at least £20,000 by helping 53 offenders.

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You manipulated the process in order to save offenders from the consequences of their offending - fines, penalty points and disqualification”

End Quote Judge Alistair McCreath Southwark Crown Court Patel was sentenced to three years for bribery and six years for misconduct in a public office, which he also admitted at Southwark Crown Court last month. He will serve both sentences concurrently.

Sentencing him, Judge Alistair McCreath told Patel: "It hardly needs saying that these were very serious offences.

"They involved a very substantial breach of trust. Your position as a court clerk had at its heart a duty to public confidence in it.

"A justice system in which officials are prepared to take bribes in order to allow offenders to escape the proper consequences of their offending is inherently corrupt and is one which deserves no public respect and which will attract none."

Secret filming

The judge added: "This indictment represents misconduct which lasted well over a year and involved at least 53 cases in which you manipulated the process in order to save offenders from the consequences of their offending - fines, penalty points and disqualification."

Patel was arrested after The Sun filmed him arranging the bribe to prevent a traffic penalty for speeding being entered on a legal database.

Between February 2009 and August 2011 he gave people advice about how to avoid being summoned to court over traffic penalties, the court was told.

The new Bribery Act, which came into force on 1 July, made it illegal to offer or receive bribes, and to fail to prevent bribery.

Before the new law, similar regulations dated back to 1906 but the Bribery Act also covers bribing a foreign public official and a corporate offence of failing to stop a bribe on behalf of your organisation.

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