Omaboe, R v

SIR GEOFFREY GRIGSON: On 21st April 2008 at the Crown Court at Blackfriars, this applicant pleaded guilty to one offence of possession of a false identity document with intent. He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment which the judge described as the least sentence he could pass. The judge also recommended that the applicant be deported.

There were three co-defendants, each of whom faced the exact same charge and received the exact same sentence of imprisonment. Two of the three were recommended for deportation. The fourth escaped recommendation.

The facts briefly are these. On 3rd February 2008 immigration officers went to the Olympic Park in Stratford where the applicant and his three co-accused were all employed as security guards. The applicant had provided his employers as proof of identity with a photocopy of a forged Ghanaian passport which had been stamped to show that he had leave to stay in the United Kingdom indefinitely. In interview the only explanation offered by the applicant was that his own passport had been lost in 2003 and probably that it had been stolen. It may not be a coincidence that his permission to stay in the United Kingdom expired that same year.

The applicant submitted his own grounds of appeal. They were very substantially out of time. The single judge who refused the application for extension and for leave to appeal said that there was no sufficient explanation for the long delay. The explanation proffered is that the applicant was waiting for a medical report. That of course provides no reason for delaying the making of the application. A medical report could have been supplied at any time subsequent to the application being made. The single judge went on to say that he would not have given leave to challenge the deportation in any event and it is in fact only against that part of the sentence that the applicant applies for leave to appeal.

He has set out voluminous grounds of appeal against that order. The grounds include that the judge gave insufficient reasons; that the judge paid insufficient regard to his previous good character and the circumstances and nature of the offence, that he had insufficient notice and that the automatic deportation provisions did not apply.

We have read all the papers, including the various character references and medical reports supplied by the applicant. We have read what the judge said and he did give adequate reasons. He said:

It is plain from the documents that proper notice was given. The applicant is right to assert this was not an automatic deportation case; it was not. It was, as we have said, a recommendation for deportation. The words used by the learned judge echo the words used by Rix LJ in the case of Benabbas [2006] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 94. He said that the public interest in preventing the fraudulent use of passports to support residents is of considerable importance and deserves protection. Confidence in the passport system was important. Conduct involving the use of forged passport undermined the good order of society. The test that the learned judge had to apply was whether the applicant's continued presence was to the potential detriment of this country. He properly directed himself and came to the conclusion that it was. It seems to us that the application for permission to appeal is in fact as unfounded as the application for an extension of time and both of these renewed applications are dismissed.