Mother used fake passport to claim £68,000

Sally Osei claimed child tax credits, income support and working tax credit after moving her three children to the UK to join her. She also gave birth to two more while posing for five years as Georgina Gilbert-Parker, Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday.

The money was paid into accounts she had opened in her "new" name and she ended up living in a four-bedroomed council house in Leeds, when in reality after arriving on a visitor's visa which had expired, she had no right to remain here.

John Bull, prosecuting, told the court once Osei acquired the passport in the other woman's name she was able to sustain the fraud for years.

Osei, 34, of Broadway Street, in Bramley admitted charges of obtaining UK passports for herself and her children, assisting unlawful immigration and possessing false identity documents.

Jailing her for a total of three-and-a-half years. Recorder Alistair Macdonald QC also recommended she be deported, saying she had "fleeced the taxpayers".

He said the genuine Mrs Gilbert-Parker had at some stage lost her birth certificate which had apparently ended up in the criminal network. Osei had managed to obtain a false passport in that name "and from that point on you stole her identity."

She had used it to obtain documents to enable her children to enter the UK, he said, adding, "They would not in fact have been allowed in otherwise."

She also used it to open bank accounts into which benefits were paid since 2005 and "all that had been paid on the basis you were a legitimate person residing in the UK whereas the reality was you had absolutely no right to remain here."

He said it was sad she would now be separated from her children but they were serious offences. Passports were the cornerstone of the UK maintaining boundaries and if they fell into the wrong hands "all sorts of use can be made of them".

Mr Bull said the real Georgina Gilbert-Parker was born in Leeds in 1976 to Ghanaian parents studying at Leeds University. She had returned to Ghana but had British citizenship and later returned to live in London before moving to America to do a degree in computer science.

She was issued a 10-year passport in 1995 which she had never lost but in 1998 had lost her birth certificate.

In 2005 Osei managed to acquire a replacement passport in Mrs Gilbert-Parker's name but with her own photo on it.

She then applied for visas to bring her three children aged 16, 11 and eight to the UK. She subsequently gave birth to two more, now aged four and two.

The court was told she had also made attempts to support applications for a male partner to stay in the UK which had been refused. He was the father of her youngest two children but having been refused leave to remain had absconded and his whereabouts were not now known.

Osei was arrested on May 12 this year outside her children's school and had tried to maintain her false identity but eventually admitted the truth.

The Recorder was told her three older children had no right to remain in the UK but there could be issues over the two youngest who were born here.

Martin Sharpe, for Osei, said shortly after she had arrived in the UK in 2004 she was approached by somebody with a passport in the other lady's name. She knew it was wrong to buy it but wanted to stay and used it to apply for a new one and was thus able"perpetuate the fraud over the years."

Her motive was to give her children a better life.

Osei had also received some "physical and psychological" pressure from her partner at the time who had since absconded. She had never reported that because she lived in fear her deception would be discovered.

The benefits were used to augment her income as a cleaner at The Light in Leeds. She had not seen her children since her remand.