August

A man has pleaded guilty to five fraud offences following a prosecution by the Security Industry Authority (SIA).

Lee Brown, 29 of Belfast, provided his employer with the SIA Close Protection licence of another person with the same name. Brown then worked as a security guard and door supervisor for four months until the licence expired. Securigroup had noticed that the forged licence was in an older version and reported it to the SIA. When the licence was checked it was found to be fraudulent. Brown admitted he had purchased the fake licence for £700. 

Pete Easterbrook, SIA criminal investigation manager, said, "Lee Brown stole the identities of not one, but two genuine SIA licence holders to fraudulently gain employment. He assumed that the counterfeit licences he managed to obtain were of sufficient quality to allow him to operate within the security industry with impunity, however, he was wrong in this assumption”

Laganside Magistrates' Court district judge, George Conner, said, "The Private Security Industry Act 2001 is there to protect the public. Those who work in the private security industry should be legitimately licenced."

A Professional memberships and qualifications check may have revealed the version of SIA licence was an old version.

Belinda Kandjirimuini applied for a job as a healthcare assistant using a fake passport and identification.

She has been charged with fraud, supplying a fake passport, making false representation to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to gain employment on two counts and using false identification to obtain credit. Prosecutor David Bryant said Kandjirimuini supplied a counterfeit passport to DBS to gain continued employment.

Kandjirimuini, of Henslow Road, Ipswich, was released on unconditional bail and may face imprisonment when sentenced.

Our Conditional RTW check and Passport validation (MRZ checks) would likely detect forged passports.

A summer holiday camp based at Quinton House school has been warned by Ofsted that it must carry out criminal background checks (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)) on staff. 

Management had failed to adequately screen staff at the Super Camp.  They have been given three weeks to complete DBS checks on its staff and ordered that staff should not have unsupervised contact with children until they have passed the check.

The inspector’s report stated that “The leadership team failed to carry out the required DBS checks which places the children’s welfare at risk”.

Due to this failure, Ofsted rated the Super Camp as inadequate and the school has been ordered to make improvements. Previously the Super Camps had an Ofsted rating of “good”.

Criminal records checks are recommended for all those who work with vulnerable people.