THE cost of a high-profile fraud investigation branded a “highly unfortunate waste of public funds” remains unknown despite numerous attempts to bring the information to light.

The Argus has been told Gwent Police does not hold the information it requested regarding how much taxpayers’ money was spent on Operation Iron, a two-and-a-half year investigation which resulted in the two defendants being acquitted.

In May last year, Farooq Dastgir, 53, and Gary Inchliffe, 52, were found not guilty of fraud in just three hours by a jury at Cardiff Crown Court following a three-week trial.

Mr Dastgir, who is currently suspended from his post pending an internal investigation, ran an IT centre dealing with data from Torfaen Council, Monmouthshire Council and Gwent Police.

He and his co-defendant Gary Inchliffe were accused of false accounting in which the prosecution claimed Mr Dastgir used council money to pay for a South Wales Argus supplement advertising digital developments in Torfaen which he was told should be funded through private sponsorship.

Following the trial, Mr Inchliffe’s barrister Adrian Maxwell said: “This investigation and trial was a highly unfortunate waste of public funds ending in a three-week trial of two men, two hard-working men, who were servants of their community.

"It should never have been brought before the criminal justice system. There may have been errors made by each party in this case but they were never matters that should have been subject to the criminal justice system. “

The Argus first submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request as soon as the trial ended asking for how much money was spent on the investigation, which is understood to be a significant amount.

Following an appeal, Superintendent Peter H Jones, senior investigating officer, confirmed neither Gwent Police, nor any other organisation holds the information.

A FOI officer stated: “Whilst a budget is applied to all investigations to capture overtime and ancillary costs, Gwent Police does not have a system to record hours worked, hence we are unable to identify total costs sought by the applicant.

“The only figure we could provide would be the amount of overtime and incidental costs against a code, this does not capture the hours worked or all officers/staff linked and is representative of any investigation carried out by Gwent police.”

The Argus then appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the basis that other police forces investigating higher-profile cases were able to publicly declare how much money is spent.

In June last year, a FOI request revealed the Metropolitan Police had 84 people working on Operation Weeting, which looked into phone hacking, and had cost £12.2 million to the end of the financial year 2012/13.

Senior Case Officer Joanne Edwards at the ICO upheld Gwent Police’s original reply, that it does not hold the information.

Ms Edwards confirmed that if Gwent Police does not record expenditure against a specific cost centre code for an investigation, “the only way to identify such costs would be to review the source data i.e. all invoices, transactions, procurement card payment”.

She added that cost centre codes do not capture the cost of normal working hours of staff and officers involved in the particular investigation and only capture additional costs incurred such as overtime.

A Gwent Police spokesman said: “Gwent Police has a duty to investigate allegations of a criminal nature no matter who makes the complaint and who the complaint is against.

“ Additionally we never decide whether we will investigate a matter on what it might cost. This is everyday business for police forces across the country.

"All evidence gathered in this particular case was passed to the Crown Prosecution service (CPS) for a charging decision.

“The CPS are trained, independent legal experts who review the evidence, apply a Public Interest Test and make charging decisions. This is exactly what happened in this specific case.

"Furthermore the case was heard at the crown court. The judge agreed that there was a case to answer, the matter was put before a jury and as we’ve previously stated, we fully respect the court’s finding.

"As there is an ongoing complaint against a number of officers and staff relating to this case it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage."