Man who sat driving test pretending to be his one-legged friend receives jail warning
A man who committed fraud by sitting a driving test pretending to be his one-legged friend has been warned he faces jail if he doesn't complete Community Service he received for the fraud.
Amir Sharif (29), with an address given as Annadale Drive in Belfast, was originally ordered to do 100 hours of Community Service but he has yet to complete it and was brought back to Ballymena Magistrates Court on Thursday (September 4).
The case has now been adjourned to October to see if he completes more hours of the Order.
District Judge Nigel Broderick warned the defendant: "If you don't continue doing these hours then the likelihood is the Order could be revoked and you could be sent to prison. Hopefully that is an incentive for you."
At Ballymena Magistrates Court last November, Sharif and his friend both admitted fraud. The charges related to September, 2023.
A prosecutor said Sharif had presented himself at Ballymena Test Centre for the practical part of the driving test with a provisional driving licence belonging to his friend.
The court heard the driving examiner looked at the licence and believed the male doing the test did not match the man in the photograph.
The examiner made management aware before the test commenced and notified police, the prosecutor said. The test was completed and Sharif "deliberately failed" the test, the prosecutor said.
Sharif's lawyer told the court the defendant deliberately "failed" the test after having second thoughts about what he was doing.
When spoken to, Sharif admitted to police what he had done and then his friend attended a police station in Lisburn and admitted he had asked Sharif "to do this for him".
Sharif's lawyer said his client is originally from Somalia and it had been "more than a foolish thing" to do the practical test for the co-accused. The friend's lawyer said her client had a "rather tragic background".
She added: "His father was shot and killed by terrorists in front of him and on that same day he was also shot and lost his leg and has been left disabled as a result."
At the court last year, Judge Broderick told Sharif's friend he accepted there was a "tragic background but it is no real excuse for getting someone to fake the driving test for you".
The judge had told Sharif last year: "It involves fraud and to stand in for your friend and to take the driving test is a serious fraudulent matter."
He had told Sharif he was taking into account the guilty plea and clear record and ordered him to do 100 hours of Community Service.
The judge had asked the friend if he consented to doing Probation but when told that would be problematic, he then handed down a three months jail term, suspended for a year, to that defendant at the court in 2024.