A consultant paid thousands of pounds to save Poole council money has been axed after it was revealed he had been jailed for taking bribes.

Adam Osman, who was appointed after a personal recommendation from the head of finance, was called in after the Borough of Poole received an anonymous tip-off and his £65,000, six-month contract was cut short.

Two years ago Adam Osman – then called Ozakpinar – was in prison for corruption but until yesterday he was working on efficiency savings on the borough’s biggest-spending projects.

Now a furious councillor is demanding an independent inquiry into why the director of Granta Associates of Cambridge was so urgently appointed, bypassing the usual tender process.

“It is incredible that such an expensive contract was awarded with such haste and with such an obvious lack of checking anything about this individual’s background,” said Liberal Democrat Cllr Phil Eades, who has been investigating the affair.

“This council cannot sweep this under the carpet. The episode has uncovered deep flaws in the council processes and change must happen immediately.”

Ozakpinar – who in 2008 changed his name to Osman – was head of procurement for the Crown Prosecution Service in 2004 when he took £18,000 in bribes from friends to whom he gave work.

But he was later appointed at Poole, where he was recommended by head of finance Liz Wilkinson. The two had both worked for City of York Council, where she had been assistant director.

In an email to Cllr Eades, she said he had been highly regarded and had helped make efficiencies totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“Having known Adam at that time and the work he had done there, I was confident that he would be able to do the work needed at BoP, quickly and to a high standard.”

Appointed quickly due to the “urgent need” and lack of in-house ability, since January this year he has been working on schemes including the multi-million pound Twin Sails Bridge.

Peter Pawlowski, strategic director at the Borough of Poole, said: “The council had no prior knowledge of any previous convictions relating to the contractor and took swift action to resolve this matter as soon as it was presented with the allegations.

“It is important to make clear that Granta Associates was never in a position to spend a single penny of the council’s budget or to purchase supplies or services on behalf of the authority.”

Osman had been convicted of one count of false accounting and three of corruption after a three-week trial at Croydon Crown Court and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail in September 2007.

His appeal against sentence was dismissed in April 2008 at the Court of Appeal.

Six months before conviction, he set up his own company Granta.

The Daily Echo was unable to contact Adam Osman.