A Tanzanian-born doctor living in Wolverhampton used a dead woman’s birth certificate in a failed bid to stay in Britain.

Hilda Kabali-Ishebabi was jailed for nine months and recommended for deportation after hatching the plan when her visitor’s visa ran out in February last year, a court heard.

The 33-year-old, of Albion Street in Horseley Fields, used the document to back up a bogus claim that her mother was British in a bid to stay in the country. 

After sitting medical exams she set about trying to establish an ancestral connection which would mean she was not subject to Immigration Act restrictions.

Prosecutor Mr Peter Arnold told Warwick Crown Court she applied for a birth certificate in the name of Catherine Johnson, who died in January 2000 at the age of 55.

Of Miss Johnson, he said: “She was a lady who was disabled from birth. Her parents had to look after her until she went into various homes. The defendant effectively stole her identity.”

Kabali-Ishebabi then applied for a ‘right of abode’ in the UK, supporting her application with her Tanzanian passport and forged Tanzanian birth certificate on which Catherine Johnson was shown to be her mother.

She also submitted copies of her father’s Tanzanian birth certificate and Miss Johnson’s UK birth certificate, saying the woman had met her father when working as a teacher in Dar e Salaam.

“Because there had been an earlier application, the authorities realised there was a discrepancy,” said Mr Arnold. They went to see the dead woman’s elderly mother, who was “stunned” to be asked if her daughter had ever been to Dar e Salaam.

Kabali-Ishebabi pleaded guilty to using a false instrument with intent to deceive.

Mr Andrew Singer, defending, said there was nothing for her in Tanzania and she could not afford to re-qualify as a doctor there.

She was jailed for nine months by Judge Christopher Hodson, who recommended she be deported.