MILLER: JUDGE GIVES IDENTITY THIEF CHANCE TO KEEP FAMILY TOGETHER

A barber who lived illegally in the UK for more than a decade after stealing the identities of genuine citizens could escape deportation after a judge agreed to reduce his sentence to help his family.

Vincent Miller, 33, twice managed to enter Britain using faked identities, despite being deported under one false name for smuggling class A drugs.

Jamaican Miller first arrived in the UK on 23 December 2000, when he was given permission to stay for four days, but failed to hand himself at the end of the period  to be sent back to Jamaica.

He was picked up and deported in February 2001, but within two months he was back in the country after entering under the stolen identity of Ian Millar.

Whilst living in the UK under that identity, he was prosecuted for supplying class A drugs and once again deported in March 2003.

But once again, he successfully applied for a new passport in the name of Joseph Roche, a real person, who had no idea that his identity had been stolen.

Once in the country, Miller continued live under the name of Mr Roche, applied for a driving license in his name, and took up work as a barber.

He went on to marry, and his wife was able to claim UK citizenship as a result of his false identity, as were the couple’s three children, now aged two, four and six.

Miller’s crimes were discovered after the real Mr Roche applied for a replacement driving license, and the DVLA realised there were two people claiming to be the same man.

Miller was arrested on 5 July this year, and initially claimed he had given up Mr Roche’s identity some time earlier.

He later pleaded guilty to possessing another person’s identity document, three counts of conspiring to obtain property by deception and three counts of dishonestly making a false representation.

He Jamaican faced automatic deportation after serving any sentence of a year or longer.

But the judge said he would reduce his intended sentence to allow him to stay in the country to protect Miller’s wife and three children, who were all able to become UK citizen’s thanks to his crimes.

The Judge, Recorder Farouk Ahmed told him: ‘The sentence I have had in mind was 12 months, but it seems to me that it isn’t necessary for me to pass a sentence of 12 months because a sentence of 11 months will have the same effect, and it would take away the automatic triggering of deportation,’ said the judge.

He added that his decision did not ‘tie the hands’ of immigration authorities, telling Miller: ‘You may well be deported in any event.’

‘You subverted immigration rules and you were able to construct a life in the UK based on your deception’ he said

‘I have taken into account that if you were to be deported it is bound to have a devastating effect on your three children, who I’m told are lawfully here in the UK.

‘At least one other person benefited from your conduct, and that is I’m told your former wife,’ said the judge.

‘She was able to become a UK national as a result of your assumption of Mr Roche’s identity.’

However, the judge said it was a significant aggravating factor that he had made a ‘wholesale assumption’ of Mr Roche’s identity, who was himself suspected of being the criminal.

‘He is a real person and is entirely innocent,’ he said.

‘He has been subjected to all sorts of checks, he came under suspicion, he had to prove his identity and so on.

‘The problems created for those who identity is stolen by people like you are enormous.’

The judge said he had changed his mind about the sentence he planned to impose after hearing that if Miller was handed a year or more he would be automatically deported at the end of it.

Miller, of (57) Lowden Road, Herne Hill, southeast London, was given 11 month sentences on each count to run concurrently.

Ends.