Shakeel Ahmed, a door supervisor, was sentenced to a 12-month community order with a 150-hour unpaid work duty on Thursday, 9 February 2023. This sentence was handed down by the Bradford Magistrates’ Court following Ahmed’s guilty plea to forging documents in a fraudulent appeal against an SIA (Security Industry Authority) decision to reject his door supervisor’s license application.
On 12 March 2021, Mr. Ahmed applied for an SIA license to work in the private security industry. However, his application was rejected due to his previous criminal record. In an effort to appeal the decision, Mr. Ahmed submitted four character references to the SIA. However, the SIA’s decision team quickly realized that the references were either fraudulent or forged due to suspicious similarities between them.
The SIA’s criminal investigations team launched an investigation into the sources of the character references on 23 August 2021. Through their investigation, they found that none of the supposed sources had provided a reference for Mr. Ahmed. Despite repeated denials, Mr. Ahmed eventually admitted during a cautioned interview on 25 November 2021 that he had produced the character references and forged the signatures on three of them.
Jenny Hart, the SIA’s criminal investigations manager, stated that the purpose of the SIA’s licensing regime is to protect the public and that the SIA applies significant scrutiny during the decision process to assess whether someone is fit and proper to hold an SIA license. She also added that forgery is a serious criminal offense and commended the vigilance of SIA colleagues in detecting this fraud.
Mr. Ahmed’s sentence serves as a reminder of the consequences of trying to deceive the SIA in an effort to obtain a license. The SIA takes the responsibility of protecting the public very seriously and will not hesitate to take legal action against those who try to circumvent its processes.
Source: Gov[Dot]UK
