A SHOPLIFTER caught stealing an £80 jacket from TK Maxx in Northampton was found to be an illegal immigrant living and working under two false identities.
Randollph Morthey, 39, was arrested for shoplifting in the St Peter’s Way store on September 24 and when police began investigating, they discovered he had a number of false documents.
Northampton Crown Court heard he had been using a bank account in another person’s name to receive his wages, having obtained work with two car valeting services in Northampton.
Michael Waterfield, prosecuting today, said: “Police went to his property and there they found paperwork including a Barclays account in a false name, paperwork for proof of address for council tax, an NHS card and an O2 phone contract which were also in a false name.”
Officers also found a false German passport in a second false identity which had been used to secure work between February 2009 with one firm and again with another until September 2011.
The court heard £14,000 wages had been paid into the account, which had been opened by a woman but which Morthey, of Briar Hill, Northampton had adopted and used to receive wages.
Mr Waterfield said that when he had also been arrested and cautioned for shoplifting in 2007, Morthey had been processed and released having used one of the false identities.
Judge Lynn Tayton QC said: “This is some what beyond the using of false documentation to obtain employment. It is having the documentation, using them and that’s not to simply to obtain and keep employment. It goes beyond that because when he has been in contact with the police, he has maintained that false identity with the use of them.”
Morthey, who arrived in the UK from Ghana in 2002 and then overstayed his visa, pleaded guilty to theft and three fraud offences. Judge Tayton jailed him for a year.
She said: “You used false documentation to remain here illegally having absconded when your asylum application failed and used an count not opened by yourself but used to pay money in.
“ But I do accept you have worked hard to support your family.”