Door supervisor prosecuted for working with cloned SIA licences

Obi was ordered to pay £1,538 in fines, a £1,300 contribution towards prosecution costs and £3,000 in compensation making a total of £5,838.

The SIA brought forward the case as a result of ongoing investigations into the use of fraudulent SIA licences in London. Obi was found to be working with two fraudulent licences bearing his own photograph, but with the names of legitimate SIA licence holders on the cards.

Obi was interviewed under caution at the SIA’s head office by the regulator’s criminal investigators. He was shown evidential material at the interview and provided: “No comment” replies to questions put to him.

He was charged with two offences contrary to Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 and one offence contrary to Section 6 of the Fraud Act 2006.

Obi was sentenced for the Section 6 offence and ordered to pay a total of £5,838 at a rate of £500 per month with the first payment due within 28 days. He will be required to pay £500 per month thereafter until the full amount has been paid. The amount should be paid off within 12 months.

Nicola Bolton, one of the SIA’s criminal investigation managers, commented: “Obi chose to work as an unlicensed security operative across venues in London, in turn putting patrons at risk due to his actions. The licensing regime is there to protect members of the public such that only trained and suitable individuals can be licensed. Obi decided to use cloned licences, which amounts to the possession of articles for use in fraud under Section 6 of the Fraud Act 2006. Along with having to pay the fine, Obi now has a criminal record.”

Bolton added: “We are continuing to combat the use of cloned SIA licences and we remind industry to conduct thorough due diligence checks on the licences of those operatives they deploy. The security features embedded in an SIA licence will help employers in this regard. They should also request secondary identification documents from the licence holder.”