A father sought to gain financially by seeking to place another man's name on his baby's birth certificate. The fraudulent scheme was scuppered after staff at Cardiff Register Office became suspicious when the baby's name was spelled incorrectly on the application.
Antonian Psota, 24, agreed to put the name of Anderson Gjuta, 23, on his child's birth certificate after he was offered payment. Mr Gjuta had come to the UK illegally and believed he would have more chance of securing a visa to remain in the country if he was registered as the child's father.
A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday heard the defendants and the child's mother travelled from the West Midlands to Cardiff on March 21. The mother spoke to a registrar while the two men waited outside.
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Discrepancies were noted by the registrar including differences in signatures on the registration and reregistration form. The baby's name was also spelled incorrectly and the date of birth was missing. The registration was refused and the mother later told police she was being forced to sign the documents against her will.
Both of the defendants were arrested at the register office on suspicion of perjury and were taken to Cardiff Bay police station. The men initially denied any wrongdoing and Gjuta maintained he was the child's father.
But Psota and Gjuta, both of Forrester Street, Walsall, later pleaded guilty to making a false statement with intent to have it inserted in a register of birth. The court heard Psota had one previous conviction for possession of a bladed article and Gjuta was of previous good character.
In mitigation Psota was described as "naive and immature" for embarking on the fraud but had done so in order to "establish a home" for his family. Gjuta was said to have pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and was not successful in having his name placed on the birth certificate.
Sentencing, Recorder Carl Harrison said: "You were willing to allow your child to have false details on their birth certificate – a document that would be used for the rest of that person's life... This was a deliberate attempt to manipulate public records to circumvent immigration rules for financial gain."
Psota was sentenced to a total of 36 weeks imprisonment. Gjuta was sentenced to a total of 28 weeks imprisonment.
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