Woman sentenced to jail for using false documents.
A Nigerian woman has been sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for a year, for using false identification documents to get work in the UK.
The 37-year-old woman, used the false documents to work with vulnerable adults and children in care homes and a school in Gloucestershire, UK.
Fatou Johnson, of Nutfield Gardens, Ilford, Essex, pleaded guilty at Gloucester Crown Court to two charges of possession of false documents and fraudulently using them to obtain a Disclosure and Barring service (DBS) certificate to get work. She was also ordered to attend ten rehabilitation activity sessions.
Johnson was arrested at a school in Tewkesbury when her offences were detected, the court heard.
Judge Michael Cullum told her last week, that it was ‘exceptionally serious’ to use counterfeit documents to deceive the DBS ‘whose job is to safeguard the vulnerable.’
But after being told that despite working illegally Johnson had an ‘exemplary work record’ with ‘exceptionally positive references’ from those that had employed her he allowed her to walk free from court. He said;
“It is serious that the DBS were misled but there is enough mitigation to suspend the jail sentence.”
Prosecutor, Janine Wood, told the judge that Johnson had arrived in the UK on a visa in October 2011. The visa expired in 2012 but she then became an ‘overstayer’ and remained.
Mrs Wood said that in August last year the DBS began to check the documents that Johnson had provided in her application for a certificate and concluded in September that they were counterfeit.
Johnson was arrested on December 30 last year at Cambian Southwick Park School in Tewkesbury where she was then working.
It emerged that Johnson had worked in 2013 with adults with dementia, Mrs Wood said. In 2014 she worked for the for the Brandon Trust with individuals with learning difficulties.
Mrs Wood said she also worked at Deanwood Lodge, in Maisemore, and Severn Care in Chaxhill as well as the school in Tewkesbury.
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