A DELIVERY driver has been jailed for using a fake licence to carry on working after he was disqualified.
Gregori Tiosa obtained the realistic looking licence and a false Romanian identity document after he was banned for drink driving. The licence even carried his own photograph.
His deception was unmasked when police checked his documents after following his van from ExeterAirport in East Devon to a McDonalds restaurant in Newton Abbot.
Officers used a portable fingerprint checker to establish his true identity and experts at theBorder Force confirmed the licence and ID card were professional forgeries.
Tiosa, aged 29, of Homefield Road, Exeter, admitted possession of an identification document with improper intent and driving while disqualified and without insurance.
He was jailed for nine months and banned from driving for another seven months after his releaseby Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court. He also ordered the forfeiture of his £1,500 Mercedes Vito van.
The judge told him: ‘You knew perfectly well you were banned, despite which you deliberately took a jobas a delivery driver, with the prospect of a good deal of driving in store.
‘You used not one but two false documents in an attempt to conceal your true identity and your pastdriving offences.’
Miss Kelly Scrivener, prosecuting, said police followed Tiosa’s van from the A30 near Exeter Airportdown the A380 to Newton Abbot on December 9 last year.
They approached him after he stopped and he produced the false licence, which carried his photograph.A fingerprint check revealed his true identity. The false licence was in the name of a Romanianwhile Tiosa was believed to be Moldovan.
He was subject to a driving ban of 14 months after being convicted of drink driving in 2021.
The ban, which was due to end in January 2023, was extended for three months after he was prosecutingfor driving while disqualified in March 2022.
Mr Sam Wysocki, defending, said Tiosa is entitled to live in Britain because he has pre-settledstatus, having moved here in 2018 to support his wife and four-year-old son who are still in Moldova.
He said Tiosa has worked as a chef and in a car wash as well as a driver but obtained the falselicence so he could take a well paid job as a driver to earn extra money for his family at Christmas.
Mr Wysocki said: ‘He saw an advertisement for a delivery driver, earning far more than he was at thetime, and made a poor decision which was financially motivated.’