An Ipswich youth worker has denied misconduct after being accused of lying to police about the whereabouts of a stabbing suspect due to having a relationship with him.

Meera Acharya, 32, worked for a joint initiative called Suffolk Against Gang Exploitation (SAGE) which was set up by Suffolk County Council and Suffolk police following a number of gang related incidents involving young people in 2018/2019.

She was specifically asked to engage with a 26-year-old man who’d recently been released from prison and to steer him away from having a negative influence over young people in the community, said Andrew Jackson, prosecuting.

In her role, Acharya was required to work closely with the police and was aware it was wholly unacceptable for a member of the SAGE team to have a sexual relationship with anyone they were asked to work with, the court heard on Monday.

However, Mr Jackson claimed that Acharya had formed a sexual relationship with the 26-year-old man and had tried to protect him by lying to police and her superiors after he became a suspect in the stabbing of a man called Pablo McSheen at Degero’s cocktail bar in Ipswich in November 2019.

Acharya, 32, of Cedarcroft Road, Ipswich, has denied an offence of misconduct in a public office in November 2019.

She is alleged to have misconducted herself by lying to her superiors and the police about the extent of her contact with a man knowing he was urgently wanted by the police in connection with an offence of violence and by not informing her superiors and the police about his whereabouts and then secretly meeting him.

The trial continues.