Juma, R. v

Following a plea of guilty, on 19 January 2007 the appellant was sentenced by His Honour Judge Katkhuda at Isleworth Crown Court for an offence of possession of a false identity document with intent, contrary to section 25(1) of the Identity Cards Act 2006. The sentence imposed was 18 months' imprisonment with a direction under section 240 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that 129 days on remand count towards sentence. He was recommended for deportation. He appeals against sentence by leave of the single judge.

On 11 September 2006 the appellant presented himself to a document examiner employed by Air Canada at Heathrow Airport, intending to board a flight to Toronto. The passport that he produced appeared to be a British passport, but the examiner was dissatisfied with it. It was in due course found to be counterfeit.

When interviewed the appellant said that he was Tanzanian but of Zanzibar origin. He had come to the United Kingdom in 1995 using his Tanzanian passport and had stayed until 2001 when an asylum claim was rejected and he was returned to his own country. He said that his parents had paid for the forged passport. He, with others in a similar position, entered the country in the back of a lorry through Dover. When returning to this country he had intended to make a further asylum claim, but the agent involved in the return had told him that it might not be easy. He had therefore decided to go to Canada, thinking that it would be easier to establish an asylum claim there.

The appellant was aged 27 at the time of the commission of this offence. The principal points made on his behalf in mitigation were as follows. He has no known previous convictions in this country. He has made a fresh claim for asylum since his arrest. The reason that he had the passport was to travel to Canada in order to leave this country and for the purpose of trying to make an asylum claim in Canada. He had suffered torture in Zanzibar when he returned after his deportation from this country and as a result he lost his sight in his left eye. He now suffers from poor health and found it difficult to receive treatment in custody. His English was poor and he remained isolated and depressed in custody. In part, what was said in mitigation was borne out by prison medical reports indicating memory loss, headaches and anxiety.

In passing sentence the judge said that a passport is an important document. Those who used false passports and deceived the immigration authorities committed a serious offence that carried a maximum sentence of ten years' imprisonment. The integrity of passports had to be maintained. The appellant's personal circumstances were of limited value. The court had to mark such offences with a sentence of imprisonment. In part the length of sentence was to deter others. Account was taken of the guilty plea and the mitigation advanced by counsel, but the least possible sentence in the judge's view was 18 months' imprisonment.

It is submitted by Miss Dodd on behalf of the appellant that the sentence of 18 months' imprisonment was manifestly excessive and that insufficient account was taken of the lack of aggravating features and the guilty plea. In support of those submissions Miss Dodd has referred us to R v Kolawole [2004] EWCA Crim 3047.

There is considerable force in Miss Dodd's submission. While Kolawole was concerned with the offence of using a false passport contrary to section 3 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act, or holding a passport with that intention contrary to section 5 of that Act, the offence in the present case under the Identity Cards Act 2006 is very similar and has the same maximum sentence of ten years. The sentencing range envisaged in Kolawole was 12 to 18 months' imprisonment on a plea of guilty by a person of good character. The mitigating features in this appellant's case are such that in our view a sentence of 18 months was manifestly excessive. Those mitigating features will be adequately reflected by a sentence of twelve months' imprisonment.

Accordingly, we allow this appeal to this extent. We quash the sentence of 18 months and in its place we substitute a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment. The direction that 129 days on remand count towards sentence will stand, as will the recommendation for deportation.