THE director of a ground-breaking Bradford restaurant has pleaded guilty to attempting to swindle £56,000 from a City Centre Business Growth Scheme.

Imran Ahmed, who jointly runs Cona in East Parade, Little Germany, will be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on August 12 for three counts of fraud by making false representation.

Ahmed, 36, of Chelmsford Road, Bradford Moor, was paid more than £29,000 in a capital grant from the scheme that aims to promote job opportunities and business growth in the city centre.

Two more claims, that would have boosted the sum to £56,150, were not paid out because of deficiencies in the application documentation, Imran Khan, barrister for Bradford Council said yesterday.

An investigation was launched and Ahmed was found to have submitted dishonest invoices and redacted bank statements.

Mr Khan stressed that the fraud was a mixture of genuinely spent money and wholly bogus invoices.

Some items claimed for had actually been bought eight months earlier, while other outgoings were paid for in cash. None of those could be properly funded by the capital grant.

“This is not fraud for the sake of it,” Mr Khan said.

Ahmed had already repaid £5,000 of the £29,000 and was continuing to make restitution, the court was told.

His barrister, Elyas Patel, handed in a stack of character references.

Ahmed was bailed until the sentencing hearing.

Ten jobs were created when the restaurant opened in May 2014. Named after a town outside Venice, it offered young professional Asian people the opportunity to eat Italian cuisine made with halal meat.

In October, 2014, it served up an Eid feast for Prime Minister David Cameron and hundreds of leading Muslim guests.

The menu was prepared at Cona before the food was transported to the capital, where the finishing touches were added in the Downing Street kitchens.

Ahmed, who met Mr Cameron, said then: “In the five months since we opened we have become a food destination. We get regular foodies coming from London, Edinburgh, Portsmouth and Ireland because there is nowhere else like us producing such high quality halal food.”