TWO immigration judges whose sexual antics were laid bare in a lurid blackmail trial involving their former Brazilian cleaner are to face a formal investigation.

The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice will examine whether the judges employed Roselane Driza while knowing that she was in Britain illegally.

Neither Mohammed Ilyas Khan, 60, nor his former lover, a woman known only as Miss J, will sit as judges while the investigation takes place.

They have not been formally suspended. Miss J is on sick leave and Mr Khan, who lives in North London and earns £98,418 a year, is understood to have volunteered not to sit pending the outcome of the inquiry. Mr Khan will remain on full pay while Miss J, who has been paid more than £100,000 while off work suffering from stress for the past 18 months, will continue on sick leave. Both are employed by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.

They insist that they did not know that Driza, 37, who was convicted of blackmailing one of the judges and stealing sex videos, was working illegally. Sanctions range from reprimands to removal from office.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, have decided that there are “sufficient grounds” to ask the new Office for Judicial Complaints to conduct a preliminary investigation. The inquiry, likely to take about three months, will establish whether there is any case for them “to exercise their disciplinary powers”.

Although the inquiry will focus on the employment of Driza, a failed asylum-seeker who was Mr Khan’s lover, it will also look at whether the trial had a negative impact on the image of the judiciary.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs said in a statement yesterday: “The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice have great confidence in the professionalism and high standards of the judiciary as a whole and consider it unfortunate if these allegations are seen as calling this into question.”

Driza faces up to 14 years in jail and deportation. Mr Khan sent her messages including one that described her as “real chilli-hot stuff”.

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