A Home Office worker who cold-called asylum seekers and offered to grant their UK asylum applications in return for cash has been jailed.

Imran Mulla, 39, can be pictured for the first time by MailOnline today after he was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years in prison for taking a £3,500 bung from a Bangladeshi man.

Mulla, from Blackburn, Lancashire, telephoned asylum seekers who would likely lose their cases and told them he could help get their rejection overturned in return for cash.

The civil servant, who worked for the Home Office in Manchester, continued to take money from one asylum seeker when he was under investigation by his bosses.

He has pleaded guilty to immigration offences and bribery at Preston Crown Court after manipulating the system to overturn a refused asylum claim.