A charity boss accused of fraud gave back more than £100,000 to Government officials following a funding error, a court has heard.

Nasir Malik is on trial at Swansea Crown Court amid allegations he swindled more than £16,000 from race equality organisation The All Wales Ethnic Minority Association (Awema).

The charity's former chief executive insisted he was not being fraudulent when he used two charity cheques to pay off his credit card bill - telling a jury it was expenses he was owed.

And father-of-two Malik told a jury he believed he was entitled to a life insurance policy from his employer because he had been promised a pension when taking on the role.

The 65-year-old countered the prosecution's case that he was dishonest by telling the court he paid back £100,000 after Awema was mistakenly given a Welsh government grant.

He said: "We were given the (European Union) Convergence funding twice. I alerted one of the Welsh government's civil servants about this but he informed me that it was money we were due.

"I set aside the money in a bank account...and had to persuade them over several months to take it back. It took them about a year."

Awema was formed in 2000 and aimed at promoting racial harmony.

Malik was initially appointed as its interim director, but was given a full time job in 2001 after helping the organisation secure vital funding.

The Kenyan-born former NHS accountant, who came to live in the UK with his parents in 1965, said the post had been advertised by the Welsh government.

A jury was told as well as a salary of around £50,000, the successful candidate would also receive a pension as well.

However, Malik said the issue of Awema paying his pension "rumbled on" for a number of years.

Swansea University graduate Malik said in 2008 , some six years after starting his post, he had finally been given the assurances he was entitled to a pension funded by his employer.

Malik added he "took it as read" that a "death in service" life insurance policy formed part of that package. The court heard that benefit is offered to employees at other public funded bodies.

And Malik added that as part of taking the pension scheme he voluntary agreed to take a pay cut - worth his salary going from £52,650 to around £49,000.

Explaining the "salary sacrifice", he said: "I did not want any come backs. I wanted to start this life insurance policy without anyone making any allegations that I was benefiting disproportionally from it."

Previously, the court has heard, Malik was the only Awema employee to have a life insurance policy when its pension scheme was rolled out to all staff.

And the prosecution have pointed to documents showing a £90 a month outlay listed in its books as "insurance" and not "life insurance".

The defendant blamed former Awema finance director Saquib Zia for both errors.

Malik said he had asked Mr Zia to "make sure" life insurance was part of the pension deal but his employee later admitted he "had forgotten" to tell HSBC about it when finalising the package.

And the defendant said the latter was evidence of a number of errors Mr Zia was making in his job.

"I was beginning to question the work that he was doing," Malik said.

Defending barrister Peter Griffiths told the jury Mr Zia was not a fully qualified accountant - with the court hearing Awema had "helped him considerably" with his training.