CLEVELAND Police Authority chiefs failed to pass on legal advice from a leading barrister who warned that ex-gratia payments to keep a senior officer from leaving were illegal, according to documents obtained by The Northern Echo.

Instead, it is claimed that alternative advice was sought and presented to unwitting Cleveland Police Authority (CPA) members who went on to authorise bonuses and payments worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In 2013, Police and Crime Commissioner Barry Coppinger launched a legal bid to recover almost £464,000 unlawfully paid to disgraced former Chief Constable Sean Price.

The Echo applied to the courts for documents from this case.

Legal papers reveal that in 2005 Cleveland Police Authority asked eminent lawyer, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, to assess whether they could give a retention payment to the Chief Constable to keep him with the force after he had applied for the job of Lancashire Constabulary Chief Constable.

He concluded that a payment of this kind would be unlawful, but authority members said they were not told about Lord Carlile’s advice before making their decision.

Instead, alternative legal advice was sought which concluded this payment could be made.

CPA chairman Dave McLuckie then wrote to members saying legal advice had been obtained which stated the payment was allowed.

Police authority members also received a report from the police authority chief executive, Joe McCarthy, stating that the one-off payment of £13,000 to Mr Price was legal.

Legal documents show that several members of the police authority, including the current Police and Crime Commissioner Barry Coppinger, later stated they had never seen Lord Carlile's advice - and would never have approved the payment if they had.

After this initial payment, the former Chief Constable of Cleveland went on to became one of the highest paid police chiefs in the country after negotiating a lucrative series of retention payments, perks and allowances that boosted his £126,471 salary by more than £50,000.

Full details of the "golden handcuffs" package were later revealed in a report compiled by Keith Bristow, the then director general of the National Crime Agency, as part of the Operation Sacristy corruption inquiry.

The deal included an annual allowance towards a car for his private use of £20,000 plus £3,000 towards fuel costs, a £2,000 health care package for the chief constable and his family and pre-school/school fees of £5,000.

Mr Bristow concluded Mr Price, who in October 2012 was sacked for gross misconduct after he was found to have lied about his role in the recruitment of the former police authority chairman's daughter, "knowingly secured for himself unreasonable, unjustified and excessive remuneration".

He did so thanks to an inappropriate and allegedly corrupt relationship with Mr McLuckie, said the report.

Asked this week by the Echo if he was aware of Lord Carlile's advice prior to the police authority awarding bonus payments to Mr Price, Mr Coppinger said: "I am sure that I was not made aware of it."

Mr McLuckie declined to comment on whether he was aware of Lord Carlile's advice before approving the bonus payments.

The Echo has been unable to contact Mr McCarthy.