A man caught with a woman’s stolen passport was sp

A man caught with a woman’s stolen passport was spared jail after a court heard he was suffering from depression because both his parents had been beheaded.

Allie Kanu, 34, claimed his mother and father had been murdered by anti-government rebels in the civil war in Sierra Leone.

A judge at Blackfriars Crown Court told him although the crime was normally punishable by jail, his ‘unhappy experiences’ meant his sentence would be 120 hours community punishment.

Police found the passport when they searched refugee Kanu while he was sitting in a car on Wilson Road, Peckham, south-east London on June 25, 2002.

‘In 1999 he got confirmation his parents had been slaughtered, and their deaths were particularly gory and involved beheading,’ said defence counsel David Wolchover.

‘When the defendant heard that he became markedly worse.

‘It was around this time he received the stolen passport, for some dishonest reason, but in fact it was never used, and it remained in his possession afterwards.

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Kanu, of Maywood House, Glebe Estate, Peckham, admitted one charge of handling a stolen passport on October 1, 1999.

Judge Richard Walker told him: ‘Given your previous good character and the unhappy earlier history of your life, as a direct alternative to imprisonment I will pass a community punishment order.

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The judge also ordered that, Kanu, who runs an import export business, pay pnds stlg 500 towards prosecution costs.

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