Eight months for forged visa gym employee

Burton, UK -- A Ghanaian IMMIGRANT who used a forged visa to get work at a Burton health club has been jailed for eight months.

Joseph Ashitey paid a ‘fixer’ £5,000 to have his passport falsely stamped with a mark indicating he had been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, jurors ruled.

The 30-year-old, of King Street, Burton, used the forgery to obtain a job with Bannatyne’s Health Club, on the Centrum 100 business park, in June, 2007, working 40 hours a week, Stafford Crown Court heard.

During two years there he earned nearly £23,000, but in June last year, police went to the health club and seized his documents.

He was arrested the following month when an immigration officer examined the visa and found it to be a forgery.

Ashitey denied charges of possessing forged documents and making false representations to obtain employment, but was convicted at an earlier trial. The defendant maintained he believed the visa to be genuine.

He appeared back before the court for sentence yesterday, when Recorder John Higham QC told him: “You came to this country lawfully on a genuine passport. It must have been apparent to you that you don’t pay someone £5,000 just to remain here.

“You strike me as someone who’s gullible — that’s not in any way to condone these offences.

Otherwise, you seem to be a hardworking young man.” However, the judge made no recommendation that Ashitey should be deported back to Ghana.

“That will be for the Home Office to decide,” he said.

Fred Powell, defending, said Ashitey, who came to the UK in 2006, now had a British wife who had given birth to a child.

The lawyer said: “He wants me to apologise to the court for the trouble he’s caused.”