Lawyer 'aided illegal passports'

A lawyer tried to help criminals get passports by using the identities of dead children, a court has heard.

Bristol Crown Court was told how Lennox Manifold counter-signed 16 passport applications for Jamaican nationals, including convicted drug dealers.

Mr Manifold, 47, of Browns Green, Handsworth, Birmingham, denies 16 counts of conspiracy to obtain property by deception.

Three other men are also standing trial over the same charges.

Andrew Morrisson, 31, of Antrobus Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, Christopher Whittaker, 35, of no fixed address and Alfreco Jones, 31, of Ash Lea Drive, Donnington, Telford, Shropshire, all deny the charges, which relate to alleged fake applications made between January 2001 and September 2006.

Timothy Mousley, prosecuting, said Mr Morrisson had been responsible for two applications, Mr Whittaker had made two and Mr Jones had made one.

Mr Manifold, who had previously worked at Maidments Solicitors and Manifold and Naser Solicitors, had been involved in four of his co-defendants' applications along with an extra 12, the court heard.

Baby's death

One of the applications counter-signed by Mr Manifold was made in the name of Junior Christie, the court was told.

Junior had been born in Hackney, London, in 1976, but had lived for less than a month, dying in a Bethnal Green hospital.

The application was sent to a passport office in Durham in 2002, 26 years after Junior's death, Mr Mousley said.

The real applicant had been Jamaican national Kenyo Powell, whose photograph was on the form.

The jury was told that 11 months after the application had been made, Powell was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to four years in prison for importing class A drugs and deported from the UK in June 2005.

Another application counter-signed by Mr Manifold related to a child who did not survive birth called Richard Brown, the court heard.

Mr Mousley said in another case the identity of a white paraplegic man called Colin Ray Briscoe, of Birmingham, was stolen and used to apply for a passport for a black Jamaican national called Patrick Campbell.

That application, made in March 2001, was also counter-signed by Mr Manifold, he told the court.

A police officer recognised Campbell's photograph on the application from a wanted poster and in 2004 he was sentenced to four years in prison at Snaresbrook Crown Court for supplying class A drugs.

The trial continues.

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