WHEN Michael Eke received the insignia of his MBE award from the Queen at a Buckingham Palace investiture in 2003, he was regarded as a pillar of the community and a paragon of charitable good works.

What no one knew was that he had applied for the award himself, forging letters from non-existent referees testifying that he would be a worthy recipient in recognition of his valuable and selfless contribution to the community in his home town of March, Cambridgeshire.

He ran the local Air Training Corps, was one of those chosen along with famous sporting names such as Sir Roger Bannister and Ian Botham to carry the Olympic torch on its London leg en route to the 2004 Games in Athens, helped to run a festival to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and appeared to be a model civilian employee of Cambridgeshire Police, where he ran the stationery store at the force’s headquarters in Huntingdon.

But Eke, 38, had hoodwinked everyone from the Cabinet Office, who recommended him to be appointed MBE, to Buckingham Palace, the arts awards arm of the National Lottery, his local MP and even his police employers, who eventually caught up with him after a lengthy internal investigation.

He now faces a possible jail sentence and being stripped of his honour after appearing at Norwich Crown Court yesterday to admit 12 charges, including seven counts of theft, four of obtaining a money transfer by deception and one of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of using a false instrument, namely a Cabinet Office nomination for an honours application form. He wrote two false references to Downing Street, in the names of people who did not exist, urging that he be nominated to become an MBE.

Eke sent further bogus letters to local community leaders, using the fictitious names Geoff Mills and Norman Jarvis, suggesting that they back his application. One went to Malcolm Moss, Conservative MP for North East Cambridgeshire, who assumed that it was genuine and wrote a recommendation to the Cabinet Office.

When he discovered that his name would appear in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2003, he invited local dignitaries to a celebratory garden party at his home. The party was paid for out of the funds of the Air Training Corps, which he had led for ten years with the rank of flight lieutenant.

It was not the first time that he had helped himself to ATC funds. In 2002 he reported a burglary at its headquarters, claiming that musical instruments had been stolen. He started a public appeal that gained the support of the local mayor and raised £19,000 to buy replacements, more than £7,000 of which went to buy Eke a new car.

Eke, married with two daughters, was also charged with obtaining by deception grants totalling £16,694 from Awards For All, the National Lottery good causes organisation, including one of £3,894 to stage an arts festival celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

His undoing began when he used false references to obtain a job as stores manager with Cambridgeshire Police, after which a number of items went missing. He was charged with stealing seven laptop computers, three televisions, two DVD players and two digital cameras, worth a total of £8,684.

He even ordered a quantity of candles for the police, then stole them and sold them for three consecutive years to St Peter’s Church, March, for use in Christmas Midnight Mass services.

Two further charges, that he forged a codicil to his mother’s will, and that he obtained £1,247 by deception from a printing firm, were left on file after Eke pleaded not guilty.

Bailing Eke and adjourning sentencing until October 3 for reports, Judge Paul Downes told him: “You must understand that it is simply an inquiry into your background, and it does not give you any indication of what the sentence is likely to be.”

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that anyone using false references to be appointed MBE could be stripped of the honour by the Queen. The spokeswoman said: “We do try to verify the information we are given in nominations by carrying out various checks, but I do not want to say what they are.”

THE ROLL OF DISHONOUR

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