Tashieka Mair, Star Writer
western bureau

Two men, who were on the British High Commission's list of persons the police needed to look out for at the airports, were remanded for the police to carry out background checks on them when they appeared before the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court on Thursday.

The two, 49-year-old Leslie Stewart of Falmouth, Trelawny, and 28-year-old Rory Rose of Pitfour, St James, were remanded until February 9 when their attorneys failed to satisfy the court that the men had no criminal reasons for obtaining fraudulent British passports, which they used to travel back and forth between England and Jamaica.

pleaded guilty

The men pleaded guilty to the charge of uttering a forged document but have instructed their attorneys that they had no previous convictions or any criminal reasons for using the forged documents.

It was outlined in court that the men had checked in separately to board a flight to England. The investigating officers, acting on information from the British High Commission, took the men to the immigration's investigative unit where checks were made that confirmed that the passports they had were fraudulent. The men also admitted that they knew the documents were fraudulent.

Attorney-at-law Adrian Dayes said Stewart, who was using the name Christopher Gibson for the past 18 years, went to England on a legitimate Jamaican passport. However, after it expired he acquired the false identity in a bid to remain in England.

In Rose's case his attorney, Dalton Reid, told the court that it was a relative living in England who got the passport for him when he first went to England at age 17, but said his client had no idea how his relative got it.

illegal activities

Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry, in responding to the pleas of mitigation, said she heard no justifiable reasons for the men's actions, and that she needed to be careful when dealing with matters of this nature. She therefore remanded the men and gave the investigating officers instructions to do further background checks to ascertain if the men had any convictions or were involved in any illegal activities locally and in England.