CORRUPT Merseyside businessmen plied police staff with expensive gifts and lavish days out to ensure they retained their lucrative building contracts, a court heard.

Civilian police workers Stephen Kell and Kevin Mighall are accused of accepting hospitality including golf holidays, days out at the cricket, rugby and races and an Everton season ticket.

Prosecutors claim one business also sent Merseyside Police estate operations manager Kell expensive Christmas hampers to ensure the work kept coming.

The jury heard the hampers, worth hundreds of pounds, were sent directly to his Wirral home.

Prosecutor Jeremy Grout-Smith said the scam ran for seven years. Liverpool Crown Court heard the pair enjoyed lavish hospitality and gifts from three different Merseyside companies.

In return, the pair ensured the companies were continually hired to work on Merseyside Police properties.

He said the men knew they were not allowed to accept gifts and did not declare any of the treats they received.

Boss Kell even banned one junior employee from going to lunch with a contractor, calling it “inappropriate”. Businessman Alan Cooper, 53, is also accused of submitting falsely inflated invoices to the force and sharing the profits with Kell.

He was a director at Whittakers Ltd, in Huyton, at the time.

Paul Gaskell, 35, and Paul Moy, 46, of the consultant engineering firm Paul Moy Associates, in Liverpool city centre, are also accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Prosecutors claim they altered files relating to the corruption in the days after Kell was arrested.

Mr Grout-Smith said Moy used his computer at 3am to delete Kell’s name from a hospitality list.

Kell, 52, earned £50,000 a year overseeing the police department responsible for maintaining force buildings, including all of the police stations and training centres.

The jury were told Mighall, 52, earned £25,000 a year running the helpdesk which answered calls about necessary maintenance.

Mr Grout-Smith claimed the pair used the helpdesk to cover up large works which should have been put out to tender.

He said rather than reveal the scale of a project, the pair ensured the work was put through the helpdesk as a series of smaller jobs so it would go unnoticed.