The chairman of the Labour Party secretly met a police chief before allegations against sponsors of the football club he ran were dropped, an investigation by The Times can disclose.

Ian Lavery met Dame Vera Baird, QC, a police and crime commissioner who was Gordon Brown’s solicitor-general, to get information about whether the police were looking into the case.

The Home Office was asked this year to request that an independent police force investigate the claims.

Dame Vera, recently appointed victims’ commissioner, never disclosed that she had met Labour politicians to discuss allegations of wrongdoing against Arch, a regeneration company set up by Northumberland county council.

The organisation spent £1.5 million on a new stand for non-league Ashington football club, then chaired by Mr