England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL
		Monday, 14 July 2008

1. MR JUSTICE GRIGSON: On 9th April 2008 in the Crown Court at Leeds this appellant pleaded guilty to one offence of possession of false identity documents with intent and another offence of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. On 2nd May he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment on the first count and 15 months' imprisonment on the second, the sentences to be served concurrently. The 30 days he had spent in custody on remand were ordered to be taken into account.
2. The appellant is an Iraqi national. He entered the United Kingdom illegally in September 2003. He sought asylum but was refused. He was not deported as there was no safe means to do so. He declined to return to Iraq voluntarily. He received subsistence and accommodation from the National Asylum Support Service and was issued with an application for a regulation card by the Home Office. That card was stamped "employment prohibited".
3. Between November 2005 and August 2007 he obtained work as a warehouseman earning over £22,000. He left that employment after a visit to the warehouse by the Immigration Services.
4. On 7th September the appellant sought employment with an agency in Huddersfield and presented to them a forged United Kingdom residence permit in his own name, which stated that he had indefinite leave to remain. He was arrested in April 2008 and his home was searched. His residence card was found. It had been altered to read "employment permitted".
5. In interview he told the police that he had paid someone to obtain the forged documents. Some £7,410 had been obtained to which he was not entitled. He is 30 years old. He has one court appearance in which he admitted three offences of a different nature.
6. The grounds of appeal drafted by Mr Welford and supported by him in argument before the court today refer to the case of Mutede [2005] EWCA Crim 3208, [2006] 2 Cr App R (S) 22. That case is not in fact a guideline case and neither, it should be stressed, is this. Had the forged documents in this case been a passport the sentence imposed would have been unimpeachable. However, we take the view that given the nature of the documents here a sentence as long as 15 months was manifestly excessive. The appropriate sentence was nine months. We quash the sentence of 15 months and impose a sentence of nine months on each count to be served concurrently. To that extent the appeal is allowed. The 30 days under section 240 will continue to count.