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An illegal immigrant caught with two forged passports sent to jail for nine months but is freed after sixteen days (19 March 2013)

Date: 19/03/2013
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, An illegal immigrant caught with two forged passports sent to jail for nine months but is freed after sixteen days

Yusuf Malik who was under curfew for 10 months was released just after serving 16 days behind the bars and the sentence was also not long enough for the illegal immigrant to have attracted automatic deportation. That takes place only after someone has spent one year or longer in the jail.

Malik has claimed that he had come to Swindon in December 2006 on a six month visitors visa but authorities claim that his entry was not recorded anywhere. He was arrested in February last year by police investigating other matters.

When the police visited his Pinehurst home he told them he shouldn’t be her and showed a French passport which he admitted was bogus and a Nigerian passport he claimed was genuine.

Malik insisted he had got it in his homeland through an agent in good faith and pleaded not guilty to knowing it was fake, but a jury didn’t believe him.

He said it was an old one his brother had sent him after he destroyed the paperwork he used to enter the country because it contained the out of date visa.
The fake EU passport had been bought through a friend for £1,000 and used so he could secure employment, he admitted.

He said that in his six years stay in the country he had never claimed benefit as he worked in care homes. Malik, of Poplar Avenue, Pinehurst, pleaded not guilty to one count of possessing a false identity document and guilty to the other.

Immigration solicitor defending said his client was living with his partner of three years who was pregnant with his child.
He said she already had three children aged, 11, four and two with three different fathers and his client provided stability to her and their lives. During the two weeks and four days he had been on remand awaiting sentence there had been a noticeable change in the behaviour of the middle child, he said.
The immigration solicitor handed up letters from his partner, her parents, neighbours and a teacher all talking of Malik’s good character.
But passing sentence Judge Euan Ambrose said the offence was so serious that it almost always carried a sentence of immediate imprisonment as identity document offence had the potential in undermining the important controls which the society had.
The judge said that since the man was an admirable individual who worked hard without claiming any benefits he would still be out in a short time as he had been under curfew.
Under Section 240A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 being on a tagged curfew of nine hours or more on remand counts as a half a day in prison.

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