When Shafkat Munir was caught last year speeding for the third time in two months he feared he would lose his driving licence. Rather than own up, he hatched a plan to hoodwink the authorities into believing that he had died in Pakistan years ago.

Munir, a 26-year-old waiter who lives in Blackburn and works in Manchester, had contacted police to contest the offences, only to be told that the speeds were correct. Then a man calling himself Rashid Hussain called the ticketing office to suggest that his friend Shafkat Munir had died abroad in 2002. When police asked “Mr Hussain” for documentation, Munir forwarded a death certificate, in Urdu, but the certificate had errors. Hussain still insisted that Munir was dead.

Police rang the mobile number given by Hussain and asked to speak to Shafkat Munir. He was that man, he said. Police later called the number again and asked to speak with Rashid Hussain. The recipient confirmed that he was Hussain and when questioned said that Munir was a friend who had died. The image of the driver captured by a speed camera matched Munir’s photograph held on the Police National Computer after he had been jailed in 2005 for two months for theft from a former employer, Preston Crown Court was told. Munir was arrested and admitted to officers that he had fabricated the whole story.

Michael Gleeson, for Munir, said that his client’s “pathetic” attempt to escape justice was never going to be successful. He had sent the death certificate to police because he needed his licence for work and his wife had been receiving IVF treatment in Leeds.

Jailing Munir for a year, Judge Andrew Gilbert, QC, told him: “Interfering with the course of justice demands a custodial sentence, especially if there is a calculated plan to disrupt a prosecution by the production of a fraudulent death certificate”.

Munir, who admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice, was also banned from driving for 18 months.

After the hearing, John Davies, of the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety, said: “Pretending to be dead to avoid paying speeding fines is almost unbelievable. Munir’s licence was clean before this spate of incidents and he would have still been able to drive. I have never known anyone go to such lengths. All credit to investigating officers for their determination to bring this man to face justice.”

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