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Sham marriage trial: Spelling errors found by officers on 'passport'

A man alleged to have mocked up fake passports and other documents as part of an alleged sham marriage racket was caught out by his dodgy spelling, a court heard.

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When officers were trawling through the hard drive of the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, one passport was found saying it was issued by the Secretary of 'Sate', as opposed to State, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

He was found to have 9,200 Coral Draw files on a hard drive, of which police trawled through around 2,500.

Among the mocked up documents found by police, were passports, driving licences, phone, water and electricity bills, bank statements and tenancy agreements.

Also shown to the jury was a screen shot of passport and driving licence templates, with passport photos of different people which could be dragged and dropped into place to create new forgeries.

He had also tried to use a computer programme called Incinerator, to permanently delete a number of the items, but failed to do so.

Incinerator is type of software which can be purchased to delete files forever, so the computer doesn't store them in the Recycle Bin on a PC.

The man is one of eight facing trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court for conspiracy to facilitate a breach of immigration law between January 1, 2012 and March 13, 2015.

Prosecutor Stephen Thomas said: "Police went to his home address on March 4, 2015.

His address was searched and he was arrested under caution.

"Then, on July 16, officers returned to his address with the Department for Work and Pensions and recovered a number of items including a hard drive which was connected to a TV in the dining room."

Pc Alex Ammerford, who is based at Bilston station, attended the address on the July date as exhibits officer.

He said: "I logged all the items recovered.

"Officers would bring them to me and I would ask the defendant if they belonged to him or not. He told me a number of items belonged to previous occupants of the property, but said that the hard drive was his."

Bill Smith, immigration officer, told how the files could be converted electronically so nobody would be able to tell they had been 'built up'.

He said: "On the hard drive, there were 9,200 files made in Coral Draw, which is a publishing software used by graphic designers which is readily available to purchase.

"What were found on his hard drive were a number of built up documents. If you look at them as though they are PDF files or JPEGs, they look like original documents, but if you view them in the Coral Draw programme, you can see that there are different elements that have been brought together."

Prosecutor Thomas added: "They were good forgeries, but one thing that let him down was spelling and grammar.

"One of the documents said that it was issued by the 'Secretary of Sate', which obviously should have said Secretary of State."

Donald Nwachuckwu, from Sabell Road, Smethwick; the man from Bilston; Olatunji George, now of Somerland Road, Sheldon; Cherene Cotterill, 26, of Thornhill Road, Handsworth; Lenka Jacova, 38 and Peter Frederick – both from Prosper Street, Wolverhampton; Aishatu Ibrahim, 25, of Routh Road, Burton, Oxford and Idris Agia from Hodnet Grove, Highgate, Birmingham all deny conspiracy to facilitate a breach of immigration law. between January 1 2012 and March 13 2015.

The trial continues.

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