SULLEYMAN:NIGERIAN FORGED COP WORKER’S SIGNATURE TO GET PASSPORT

passport…1

A Nigerian whose identity remains a mystery forged the signature of a police worker to get a
UK passport, a court heard.

The man calling himself Mohammed Sulleyman, 26, got the document with an application
countersigned by ‘Mary Renshaw’.

Sulleyman claimed she was an old family friend, living in Maybury Road, Barking.

But when police traced her passport number they discovered that Miss Renshaw in fact lived in West Mercia and worked in a civilian job for West Mercia Police.

Sulleyman applied for the passport in July 2002 from Haycroft Avenue, Barking.

Mr Peter Gray, prosecuting, said: ‘The Crown don’t accept that the man before you is Mr Mohammed Sulleyman.

‘The fact is that is the name he has given to the police and the authorities.’

Mr Gray said that the passport had been seized in the search of a house on Sherrard Road, Forest Gate, in August last year, when Sulleyman was also found at the address.

He added: ‘The authorities tried to contact Mary Renshaw and followed her up, because her passport number appeared on the passport application form.

‘It turns our that she lives at an address in West Mercia police area, and is employed by West Mercia police.

‘She has never known Mohammed Sulleyman, or his family.

‘Mohammed Sulleyman says Mary Renshaw was known to the family for some 25 years but he left this country when he was about four and went back to Nigeria.

‘He came into this country with a Nigerian passport, then made his application for a British passport.

‘He said he lost contact with her, but that his mother kept in contact with her and that is how he arranged for her to countersign the form.

‘He says there must have been some sort of mix-up. To put it bluntly, the Crown says that is complete nonsense.’

Sulleyman, of (154D) West Street, Erith, se London, denies forgery and obtaining property by deception.

The trial continues.
ends