Detective Constable John Jones, 48, was treated to the glitzy, chauffeur-driven evening by South Tyneside gangster Allan Foster, 32, in April 2006, it is claimed.

Newcastle Crown Court yesterday heard how Foster, now wanted for murder, is alleged to have been paying Jones £2,000 per week for information from police files that meant he could stay one step ahead of the law as he ran his underworld empire.

Prosecutors claim Foster and Jones had the night out in the capital just weeks before the murder of David 'Noddy' Rice in Marsden Lea car park, South Shields, for which Foster has been named as prime suspect by police.

It's alleged the pair travelled between exclusive bars by Mercedes Limousine, before going back to Foster's rented mews house where they took cocaine and ordered call girls.

Jones, a Northumbria Police officer, denies three charges of misconduct inpublic office and is being tried by a jury.

Chauffeur Niyazi Hassan, who runs an exclusive chauffeur/minder business
told jurors yesterday how he was introduced to a man called "Chris", who
prosecutors claim was Foster, via one of his existing clients, a businessman from North East England.

He arranged to collect "Chris" and his companion for a night out in April2006 and said he collected the men from the mews house in Kensington between 8.30pm and 9pm.

Mr Hassan told the court: "The arrangement was just to take him out and
show him a good time, some bars, clubs, wherever they wanted to go."

Mr Hassan said he collected the "smart, affluent, polite, respectable" men and took them into Bardos wine bar in Walton Street.

He said: "There were a couple of girls across the bar which they indicated they would like to be introduced to, so I went over."

Mr Hassan said after the men had a drink with the women he drove all four of them to The Wellington Club in Knightsbridge, but did not go inside with them.

He said: "It's a members' nightclub, it's affluent people, it's how we would say people with money.

"It's mostly celebrities, the Mayfair circle, footballers, footballers' wives, that sort of thing."

Mr Hassan said after the Wellington Club, he drove the men, who had now
separated from the women, to Stringfellows in St Martin's Lane.

Again, Mr Hassan did not join the men for a drink inside.

But he told the court: "I just said 'go and have a good time but don't
flash the cash too much because the girls can get quite attached if they see you with a bit money', I would give that advice to every client I take to Stringfellows or gentlemen's club."

Mr Hassan said after the men left Stringfellows in the early hours of the morning he drove them back to the mews house.

He said: "They rang some girls up from what I believe."

Mr Hassan said he left the men before the girls arrived, but rang "Chris" later as a courtesy call and got no reply.

Mr Hassan said he charged £250 for the night, which he thought both men
were involved in paying.

The trial continues.