THE extraordinary details of the charges admitted by Ray Mallon were revealed to the House of Commons late last night by Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell.

Mr Bell used a Parliamentary debate to accuse the former detective superintendent dubbed "Robocop" of "walking on the wild side", and to make public for the first time that:

* Mr Mallon knew one of his officers had taken a suspect from police cells, bought heroin for him and then taken him to a pub before getting him to sign a confession;

* Mr Mallon failed to investigate an allegation that a drug-dealer was tipped off about a police raid on his house by someone within Middlesbrough CID;

* Mr Mallon defrauded Teesside ratepayers of nearly £700,000 by refusing to co-operate fully with the anti-corruption investigation Operation Lancet and by waiting four-and-a-half years to enter guilty pleas.

Mr Bell dismissed Mr Mallon's crime-busting record, saying: "Zero Tolerance seemed to be based on a drug-abusing detective and a risk-taking detective who obtained statements from a prisoner so sozzled on booze and heroin that he admitted to other offences.

"This was how the clear-up rate of crime was improved in Mallon's Middlesbrough."

Mr Bell, protected from the libel laws by Parliamentary privilege, said: "Operation Lancet has highlighted a culture amongst some Middlesbrough police officers who traded with drugs as their currency - a fact again confirmed by Mallon's guilty pleas.

"Operation Lancet found that drugs taken into police custody were not properly recorded, handled or correctly disposed of by destruction.

"What happened to the unaccounted drugs? They were given to prisoners in police cells in exchange for information. And they were used by police officers themselves. All confirmed by Mallon's guilty pleas."

Mr Mallon told The Northern Echo last night that Mr Bell was well aware that he had been cleared of all criminal conduct by four independent authorities, including the Crown Prosecution Service.

"It seems he (Mr Bell) is not prepared to accept this fact and he has now become the prosecuting authority for Cleveland Police in a desperate bid to discredit me."

Mr Mallon says he pleaded guilty to the 14 disciplinary charges arising out of Operation Lancet so that, having been suspended for four-and-a-half years, he could stand in the election to become Middlesbrough's first directly elected mayor.

He added: "It should be noted that 61 officers were cleared of over 500 criminal allegations due in the main to there being no evidence other than that from burglars and thieves, who had been offered immunity from prosecution."

"To date Mr Bell has supported the burglars and thieves of Middlesbrough against police officers."

However, Mr Bell last night said that if the investigating West Yorkshire force had known of Mr Mallon's guilty pleas, it would have concluded "there was now sufficient standard of proof to support a criminal prosecution".

Mr Bell said: "Mallon's vanity was such that he preferred to turn a blind eye to drug dealing rather than act as a senior police officer with duties within the force and to the local community."