The bitter divisions at the top of Scotland Yard will intensify this week with new allegations in the race row engulfing Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

Lawyers for Tarique Ghaffur, the assistant commissioner, are to show secret tape-recordings as he pursues his claims of racial discrimination.

Ghaffur is also to make damaging allegations about Blair’s role in the cash-for-honours inquiry into alleged corruption in Downing Street.

The row over Ghaffur, Britain’s most senior Asian police officer, was inflamed yesterday by claims from his ex-wife that he had had an affair and called some police officers “pigs”.

Friends of Ghaffur disclosed he had “hit the roof” over the newspaper claims. One said: “The gloves are off now. Tarique believes the Met has been leaking to the media to damage him.”

Lawyers for the two sides are due to meet tomorrow. Ghaffur’s team, led by Lord Brennan QC, is to play the tapes to support their case. Asked what was on them, one lawyer said: “Well, it’s not the Teletubbies. It’s explosive stuff.”

Last week it emerged that Ghaffur claims that Blair had plotted to oust him from his job as Olympics security co-ordinator. In his formal complaint, Ghaffur’s legal team will say he feels “subjugated and humiliated” by the way Blair has allegedly sidelined him. Blair has denied any suggestion of racism or acting improperly.

Ghaffur is also challenging claims that Blair distanced himself from the cash-for-honours inquiry in 2006, when the Met said he stood aside because of his “close working relationship” with Tony Blair. Ghaffur now claims to have evidence the Met chief stayed “right in the middle” of the probe.

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