An illegal immigrant worked in a House of Commons cafe for two months before security noticed she had simply glued her picture onto a fake Swedish passport.
Adeyemi Zubairu was arrested on 2 January after Palace of Westminster security staff spotted the poorly forged ID document while she working as a casual member of the catering team.
The 37-year-old's role at the Despatch Box Café, which she secured through an external recruitment agency, saw her serve coffee to senior ministers, MPs and their guests.
Sierra Leonean Zubairu insisted she had applied for the job in desperation for cash after her aunt, who still lived in her native country, contracted Ebola and needed medicine.
She was granted a suspended sentence today after a judge said she committed the crime for ‘honourable reasons’.
Zubairu appeared at Southwark Crown Court wearing gold earrings, a mint green scarf and black overcoat.
‘Those who use counterfeit passports to evade immigration rules in this country in this country go to prison for 12 to 18 months at least and those who use them to evade employment strictures for six to 12 months,’ said Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith.
‘I think this is one of those cases where I can be merciful and suspend the sentence.
‘You are an over-stayer, you came to this country in 2008 as a student, your visa expired in 2010, you married in 2014 and applied for leave to remain - that leave as it happens has now been granted.
‘You were allowed to work for six months while your application for leave was considered and as part of that application you surrendered your valid Sierra Leonean passport which meant that you didn’t have it in your possession.
‘You have a young sister in Sierra Leone and she was looked after by your aunt.
‘Tragically your aunt fell ill from Ebola and obviously required treatment. That treatment cost money.
‘She died on 30 October and I have seen the certificate.
‘Against that background you decided, against the advice of your husband, to try and get some work to try and get some money towards the medicine your aunt required and the upkeep your sister required,’ he said.
A friend gave you a forged passport - not a very good one, it had no less than 32 areas of discrepancy on it - and your friend allowed you to work for an agency pretending to be her.
‘This was discovered by security staff at the Palace of Westminster when in January this year - and the defendant had already been working in the Palace of Westminster for about two months - she had to present proof at the office in order to obtain a high-level security pass and in so doing she presented evidence of her identity initially as Josephine Gibson by presenting a Barclays bank statement in that name.
She was asked to produce something more substantial and ‘hesitant’ and ‘reluctant’ Zubairu showed them her bogus passport.
Mr Zinner told the court the passport was examined by the Home Office and 32 ‘areas of irregularity’ were identified - including the crudely glued passport.
‘It was a forgery of a Swedish passport that the defendant appears to have obtained and then further forged,’ he said.
‘At the time of her offending she was an illegal over stayer, not entitled to work and clearly it was a serious breach of security at the Palace of Westminster.’
But Sarah Vine, for Zubairu, said her client had only been spotted when she was greeted by a member of the security team who was not familiar with her face.
She said Zubairu had desperately sought work in the UK to support her 14 year old sister who now lives alone in Sierra Leone after her sole carer died from Ebola.
‘She didn’t go home because obviously things in Sierra Leone are extremely difficult.
‘The country, even before being hit by the Ebola epidemic, was and continues to be in a state of, if I characterise it as disrepair after the war that would be an understatement.
‘She felt she would be better placed here with member of the Sierra Leonean community,’ said Ms Vine.
Zubairu appeared before a immigration judge on the 10 February who verbally indicated he was allowing her application and she would be granted leave to remain in the country, the court heard.
Zubairu of Camberwell, southeast London, admitted possessing a fake identity documentl.
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