Christopher McEvoy, 47, claimed he had paid four peers £77,000 for expenses and advice they provided to the Constables’ Advisory Panel between 2014 and 2015. But an examination of bank statements revealed that he had only transferred £36,000 to their accounts.

McEvoy from Islington in north London has been given a suspended 14-month prison sentence at Southwark Crown Court and disqualified from being the director of any company for two years for defrauding the Police Federation out of £42,000 through fraud by abuse of position and false accounting, related to the spreadsheet he provided supposedly showing how the money had been spent.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court heard that the advisory panel was set up in January 2014 by the Constables’ Central Committee, which is part of the Police Federation.

The panel’s role was to advise its parent committee on reforms and improvements to policing. Its membership included a cross-party group of peers.

The committee hired McEvoy’s company, Thornhill Public Affairs Limited, and gave it £250,000 upfront to support the work of the panel.

Within weeks McEvoy had transferred the money to a second Thornhill account and then transferred some money to his personal account.

The prosecution said there was a general pattern in the movement of money between accounts. When his personal account was overdrawn, transfers would be made from the Thornhill account to top it up.

Suspicion grew in February 2016 when the Constables’ Central Committee asked for a full breakdown of how the £250,000 had been spent and McEvoy provided a spreadsheet but no invoices or receipts as proof of spending.

His spreadsheet claimed to show a total spend of £241,047.38 related to the work of the advisory panel for the two years between January 2014 to December 2015. But not a single VAT invoice was provided to prove VAT had been charged and paid on the amount.

The Police Federation terminated their contract with Thornhill in April 2016 and later reported the matter to the police.

Following the sentencing, Sarah Place, a specialist fraud prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: ‘Christopher McEvoy treated company money as his own piggy bank to dip into whenever he liked. 

‘We estimate that the Police Federation lost at least £42,000 as a result of his offending.

‘Christopher McEvoy was trusted with £250,000 to provide services he had promised to deliver but chose instead to defraud his client.

‘Although some of the money was legitimately spent, he also inflated his expenditure to pocket the difference, moved money to his personal account to pay off recurring overdrafts, and moved money into betting accounts. Despite being repeatedly asked he has never provided all his invoices or VAT receipts.’

Thornhill Public Affairs was the subject of a winding-up order in the High Court in November 2016.