A father-of-nine used a fake birth certificate and passport to enrol his son in school a year early because his wife couldn’t cope.
Shahazad Aslam registered his son at a primary school in Fife in April 2011 using false documents to confirm the boy’s identity.
The boy studied at the school for a year despite being too young to attend primary school.
Aslam’s lawyer told a court that he had wanted to send his son to school ahead of schedule to take the strain off his wife who was struggling to cope with their large family.
A sheriff told Aslam at Dundee Sheriff Court on Wednesday he had “no idea” why he hadn’t simply enrolled his son into nursery as he would have been entitled to do.
But he said he was “just able to” avoid sending him to prison.
Fiscal depute Joanne Smith told Cupar Sheriff Court: “He initially presented himself at the school and was advised of certain requirements regarding identification documents.
“He provided those on June 29 2011 – a birth certificate that had been translated into English.
“In addition he presented a photocopy of a passport in the name of the child.
“The enrollment was deemed complete and the boy started in August 2011.
“The child was part of an earlier intake than he should have been – the birth certificate had different dates of birth.
“The following year the accused contacted another primary school to register his son there.”
Mr Aslam completed the forms and requested that the previous primary school provide copies of the identification documents.
Ms Smith continued: “They refused and he then said his child would stay at his own primary school.
“His wife then attended at the new primary and provided the genuine documents, which were compared and the offences came to light.”
Aslam, 40, of Dean Park Court, Kirkcaldy, pleaded guilty on indictment to charges of fraud and attempted fraud.
Ryan Sloan, defending, said: “It is a highly unusual case. Essentially if the child had been born six weeks earlier he would have been in that school year.
“He has a large family of nine children and had lost his mother-in-law around the time of the first charge.
“His wife was finding it difficult to cope with the children and he wished for the boy to be enrolled in school.
“That was in an effort to assist his wife – he enrolled the child a year early. That was the motivation behind it.”
Sheriff Charles Macnair QC placed Aslam on a community payback order with 120 hours of unpaid work.
He said: “I don’t accept that this was momentary stupidity – this was planned and it involved quite a lot of work to prepare the necessary documents and it happened over a prolonged period.
“The other issue that troubles me is that there will have been an impact on your son having to use a false name and date of birth which must have been difficult for him.
“I have no idea why you didn’t go to the school where he would have been entitled to nursery education and it may well have been possibly to have had a full time nursery placement.
“But you didn’t and you committed this fraud.”
Source: stv
