How a West Midlands Pc sparked a major terror alert just to get one over a rival

Amar Tasaddiq Hussain was a 29-year-old police officer covering the Birmingham West and Central beat.

He was also a member of the Muslim community group Dawat-E-Islami, which has links to Pakistan, and harboured ambitions to be its head of security. But there was a problem.

Faisal Sami led the group which is responsible for a number of mosques in the West Midlands. But there was a grudge between the pair.

Mr Sami had appointed solicitor Shahid Aslam to be in charge of the group's security arrangements.

Hussain, of Yardley, Birmingham, had been critical of security arrangements.

Rumours were also circulated that the group's management was corrupt.

A close friend of Mr Sami's was Irfan Ul-Haq, of Sandwell Street, Walsall, who ran Sergeant Tyres in the town. Ul-Haq was an illegal immigrant having overstayed a visa.

Hussain knew if he could give police reason to investigate him they would discover his alien status and deport him, discrediting and bringing embarrassment on Mr Sami.

This would give him leverage to take up the head of security role and gain greater prestige in the Muslim community.

On September 7, 2014, West Midlands Police received two calls alleging a sham marriage was going to take place.

The callers accused Mr Sami of organising it and that Irfan Ul-Haq as one of those participating in the marriage.

One of those calls was made by Hussain's friend Adil Bashir, aged 26, of Small Heath, Birmingham.

Police went to an address in Moseley, found a group of men eating food and talking and recorded the calls as malicious.

The attempt to undermine and embarrass Mr Sami had failed. More was required.

Hussain, conspiring with Bashir and another associate Muhammed Sheikh, 31, of Bordsley Green, decided more serious allegations would be needed.

At 3.41pm on December 8, 2014, Hussain called 999. He told the operator of a plan that night to kidnap a police office in Birmingham by a man known as 'Irfan' with links to Syria and ISIS.

He told the 999 handler: "I have been asked to drive someone I know around because he, he's basically, he's got some link with ISIS and Syria and his next stage is now to kidnap a police officer from Birmingham, West Midlands."

That then sparked a major terror alert.

They saw the content of the call as a credible threat to the security and safety of a police officer who may be kidnapped that evening.

They had six hours to put procedures in place to minimise the threat and maximise the security and safety of all police staff.

Police staff were told that they had to call their stations to say that they had got home safely. News of this started to leak to the media and became major breaking stories nationally.

Armed response teams were on heightened alert. A hostage negotiator was on call – he made contact with the number which had made the 999 call to try to get further information. But the phone was switched off. During the night, the investigation carried on.

The next day, West Midlands Police carried out briefings with the media as fear of a terror alert escalated.

Then-assistant chief constable Garry Forsyth said a 'dynamic and fast-moving' investigation was under way. By 4.20pm, officers had done enough research from what the caller had told them to identify a suspect.

That man was Irfan Ul-Haq.

Counter Terrorism officers went to Sergeant Tyres, in Cobden street, Walsall.

The decision was made to arrest Ul-Haq for the immigration matter while inquiries were still ongoing into the anonymous call.

The rationale behind this decision was to remove Ul-Haq from the public arena and possibly frustrate any offences, thereby maintaining public safety.

Soon after his arrest, it was clear that the information provided by the anonymous caller and the circumstances known to the officers about Ul-Haq matched. The decision was made to also arrest Ul-Haq on suspicion of kidnap.

As far as Hussain was concerned, the 999 call had done its job.

However, during the course of the interviews it became obvious to the investigating officers that the call to the police was malicious.

Ul-Haq was released from the custody and handed over to the Immigration Department. He was subsequently deported to Pakistan.

Attention turned to finding out who was responsible for the call. The spotlight fell on Hussain after Ul-Haq and Mr Sami were interviewed as witnesses and told police of his criticism of Dawat-E-Islami.

On Christmas Eve 2014, Hussain called the Counter Terrorism Unit after friends of his were contacted by police.

The conversation raised further suspicions and the detective who took the call also detected similarities in Hussain's voice and that of the hoax caller.

A check of the police computer system's records then found that Hussain had tried to access the terror alerts log number shortly after it was created.

The log was restricted so he could not access it. But critically, there was no way he could have known the log number or that it existed if he wasn't the man behind the call.

The police's main suspect, to their horror, was one of their own.

A search of his internet history found news articles about the terror scare. Later, a voice recognition expert would pair his voice with that of the hoax caller. Analysis of phones and SIM cards would also incriminate him and his two co-accused.

They were arrested in September.

The three denied two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice but were found guilty by a jury at Stafford Crown Court.