AN ILLEGAL immigrant who tried to use a fake passport at Liverpool airport has been jailed.
Pakistani Khalid Mahmood, 30, was stopped at John Lennon airport when officials spotted his fraudulent document.
Kim Egerton, prosecuting, told how inquiries revealed the passport had a real number, but was invalid after being declared stolen by its rightful owner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard Mahmood paid £5,000 for the document to go on holiday to Barcelona after working solidly since arriving illegally in the UK 3½ years ago.
Jailing him for nine months, Judge Robert Warnock told him: “This case comes from naivety and sheer rank stupidity on your part.”
Teresa Loftus, defending, said Mahmood, of no fixed address, had been part of a wealthy family from Northern Pakistan hit by the in 2005 earthquake. After being pressured by local thugs, he had sold the family’s remaining land and paid £7,000 to be brought to the UK.
