Tagging order for man who drove with fake foreign licence

A brazen fraud who drove the roads of Scotland having never passed a driving test, then tried to pass off a bogus Latvian licence as real when he was handed a speeding fine, has avoided prison.

Ivo Sokolovics sent in the forged Latvian driving licence to a court after being handed a £100 fine and three penalty points for a speeding offence on the A90 between Aberdeen and Dundee.

The factory worker tried to pass the licence off as real but a discrepancy was picked up by an eagle-eyed clerk at Glasgow Sheriff Court, which processes fines from across Scotland.

A photocopy of the card was sent to DVLA where a document examiner realised it was fake.

Sokolovics was then pulled over in Forfar in November and again tried to pass the licence off as real.

When he was interviewed by police he admitted he had never passed a driving test either in the UK or his native Latvia.

Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court: “He complied with the fixed penalty notice and sent a cheque and what purported to be a Latvian driving licence to Glasgow Sheriff Court.

“When it was examined at DVLA it was revealed it was fraudulent, giving him no entitlement to drive as he was a non-UK driving licence holder.

“Local enquiries were made and he was stopped on November 24 2015. He was told the reason for being stopped and thereafter produced the same fraudulent driving licence.

Sokolovics, 29, of Taranty Road, Forfar, pleaded guilty on indictment to two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice and one under the Identity Documents Act 2010, all committed between February 21 and November 24 2015.

Sheriff Alastair Brown imposed a restriction of liberty order confining him to his home in Forfar from 7pm to 7am daily on an electronic tag.

He said: “What you did was not simply something spur of the moment. It was quite clearly a deliberate scheme and that is a serious matter.”