Licensees get the criminal record for fake ID users

Hard on the heels of my piece last week about the issues surrounding confiscation of fake IDs from young people, the Home Office has published a guide which gives some assistance in this area, principally to the licensed trade. It should be an essential document in every pub in the land.

There is a wealth of useful information in it, including details of what types of genuine ID and false ID are in circulation and how ID can be checked. The problem, of course, is that with ever more sophisticated computer and printing techniques, staff need to know how to differentiate between the real and the fake versions, and it is interesting to read about the pilot scheme for a system called IDscan which took place in Sutton recently and appears to provide a very accurate detection rate.

What I was most interested in, however, was the section on confiscation of ID, which is the great debating point at present. This section assumes that the bulk of confiscations will be carried out by door staff checking ID at the entry to the premises, not the questioning of a young person who attempts to buy a drink by bar staff.

Problematic​

The latter, as the guide says, is more problematic. Unfortunately, it does not really give a firm indication of the legal rights of a staff member to confiscate such a document, as there have been a number of instances where this action has been described as unlawful.

It might have been more helpful if the guide had been stronger on the issue. As it is, perhaps the most useful piece of advice is to ensure that there is prominent notice stating the house policy on confiscation, which will deflect the potential anger of the customer from the staff member concerned.

There also needs to be a policy and a fixed procedure on what to do with the confiscated documents. It would appear, in the absence of any national police policy on this, that much will depend on how the local force deals with the licensed trade on this: does it follow up on the incidents or merely log the fact that an attempt to gain entry or buy alcohol was made?

The fact that the guide has to go into great detail about the different types of fakery (altered genuine documents and borrowed genuine documents are different from out-and-out fakes) shows what a minefield this can be. Even the police are given a great deal of assistance, including a flow-chart, to show how they must deal with these different elements when they receive the documents and how they handle claims for return.

Prosecution​

However, while I am all in favour of this type of information being produced by Government, the fact that the relevant criminal legislation is spelled out in minute detail in the front of the booklet does not mask the fact that young people are almost never prosecuted for any offence of this kind.

The vast bulk of prosecutions go against the licensed trade and as it is, in many cases, an individual offence, those people get a criminal record for perhaps one or two moments of carelessness or even neglect.

Contrast this with the situation for the young person. The guide's appendix for some reason includes a chart of five specific fraud offences for which people have been prosecuted or cautioned over a three-year period up to 2009.

Impressive — until you realise it has very little relevance. Since June 2000 the use of cautions for persons under age has been replaced with "reprimands" or "warnings". So although the large cautionary poster talks of young people being prosecuted, in fact it never happens!