CROWN Prosecution lawyers are expected to make a decision soon on whether police witnesses perjured themselves over the jailing of a fellow officer.

Ex-Cleveland Police traffic officer Sultam Alam, 39, has steadfastly maintained he was wrongly jailed for 18 months for handling stolen cars, claiming he was set up.

A team from Northumbria Police is putting together a file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service following a two-and-a-half-year investigation into the claims brought by father-of-two Mr Alam.

The inquiry was supervised by the Police Complaints Authority. About a dozen officers were interviewed by the investigation team.

Superintendent Norman Taylor, of Northumbria Police, said yesterday: "Currently, everyone is scribbling away, busy in the process of compiling a report for evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service. Obviously, it will be a matter for them to consider.

"We have a detailed statement from Mr Alam and have also made a number of inquiries with officers against whom those allegations were made."

While all interviews with the officers named by Mr Alam as having a hand in his downfall have been completed, none has been suspended from duty.

The only ethnic police officer in the force, Mr Alam was jailed for 18 months in 1996 for handling stolen cars - despite pleading not guilty and protesting that he had been set up. He served nine months.

A year before he was imprisoned, he took the force to an industrial tribunal, claiming racial discrimination.

Mr Alam lost his appeal but Peter Rennie, the chairman of the panel, accused some senior officers of suffering a "convenient and partial loss of memory"