FINGERPRINT tests confirmed yesterday that the bogus Earl of Buckingham, who has lived a lie for 23 years, is a missing American ex-serviceman called Charles Albert Stopford III.

Identity checks were ordered last week after the Stopford family in Florida contacted The Times and the results were passed to the UK Immigration Service by the FBI.

Stopford, 42, who assumed the identity of Christopher Edward Buckingham in 1983, could be deported to the US within days. His parents and eight brothers and sisters said that they were shocked and excited that he had finally been found.

Becky Davis, 33, who found her missing brother’s picture on Times Online last week, said: “This is awesome news. It is a real relief after 23 years of not knowing. We all want to speak to him and see him again.”

But Kevin Stopford, 37, expressed some concern about how his younger brother might react to the news that his years of living a double life were over.

“Personally I’m excited but in another respect I cannot help but wonder how he is feeling and what his reaction will be to being deported,” Mr Stopford said.

“I think he may be quite upset because he has been denying who he really is for many years now. It has been a whirlwind week since we saw the picture and now we have confirmation there is a sense of anxiety as well as excitement.”

Jody Doe, from Northampton, who was married to the man she knew as Chris Buckingham for 13 years, said that she was “overwhelmed” by the news. Ms Doe, 40, had two children by her former husband before they divorced in 1997. She said: “We are pleased, excited and completely overwhelmed all at the same time. We’re just trying to take it all in.”

Stopford served in the US Navy and was later convicted of plotting to blow up his boss’s car with a pipe bomb. He left his family home in Florida and fled the country in April 1983 after serving a prison sentence for a probation violation.

He travelled in Japan and Germany before settling in England, where he married Ms Doe in 1984 and had two children.

After his divorce he began to call himself Lord Buckingham, a title extinct for more than 300 years, and used headed notepaper bearing the Buckingham coat of arms.

His identity fraud was discovered in January last year when his passport was found to be false during a security check at Calais. He was arrested on arrival at Dover.

The passport details matched an entry on the Register of Deaths for Christopher Edward Buckingham who died, aged eight months, in August 1963.

Since his fraud was discovered the fake earl has refused to tell police his real name. When he was charged with passport offences he told a court that he would never reveal his true identity. He refused to see his children, Lyndsey, 20, and Edward, 17, despite their requests to know the truth about their father’s past.

He was jailed and at the end of his prison sentence continued to be detained as an illegal immigrant.

Detective Sergeant Paul Bratton, of Kent Police, said: “This whole inquiry has been distressing — for the mother whose dead baby boy’s identity he stole, for this man’s former wife and his children who have been left wondering who ‘Buckingham’ really is, and indeed for Charles Stopford’s family in America.

“Now his true identity has been confirmed, hopefully this will help them all come to terms with what has happened.”

Dave Sprigg, the former police officer who led the inquiry until his retirement last year, said: “I’m pleased he has finally been identified but there are still a lot of questions to be answered . . . I’m going to write to him one last time in the hope that he might provide some answers.”

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