An impostor who stole the identity of a British baby who died in 1963 was sentenced to 21 months in prison by an English court on Tuesday.
The man, who refuses to reveal his true identity -- even to his children -- lived for 23 years under the name of Christopher Edward Buckingham, to which he added the prefix Lord, reviving the coat of arms last in use in the 18th century.
He was jailed for passport offences after it was discovered he had assumed the name using the same method as the professional killer in the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel The Day Of The Jackal.
Detective Constable David Sprigg, who investigated the case, said: "I think that he has got some dark secret that he is hiding and he doesn't want us to know what it is. He is very calm and very calculated and knows what he is doing and unless we find something on him, he is just going to sit there and say `I am Christopher Buckingham.'"
He married a Canadian in 1984, divorcing in 1997. His two children, aged 19 and 17, who inherited the Buckingham surname, still haven't the slightest idea who he is, just like the police.
He told his ex-wife his parents were killed in an air crash.
Judge Adele Williams sentenced him to a jail sentence at Canterbury Crown Court in Kent, southeast England, criticizing his "lack of remorse."
She called the case an "intriguing conundrum," adding: "Inevitably, someone does not assume a false identity unless there is a very good reason."
The man was caught out in January when British immigration officials checked his passport at the northeast French port of Calais and found it had been revoked in 2003, when a security trawl by the Passport Agency revealed an exact match with the Buckingham on the official Register of Deaths.
He was allowed to make the short ferry crossing to Dover, Kent, where he was subsequently arrested.
Over a few hours under gray skies, dozens of combat planes and helicopters roar on and off the flight deck of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, in a demonstration of US military power in some of the world’s most hotly contested waters. MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and F/A-18 Hornet jets bearing pilot call signs such as “Fozzie Bear,” “Pig Sweat” and “Bongoo” emit deafening screams as they land in the drizzle on the Nimitz, which is leading a carrier strike group that entered the South China Sea two weeks ago. US Rear Admiral Christopher Sweeney, who is commanding the group, said the tour
Sitting in a lotus position, four men weave glittering beads through gold thread on an organza sheet, carefully constructing a wedding dress that would soon wow crowds at Paris Fashion Week. For once, the French couturier behind the design, Julien Fournie, is determined to put these craftsmen in the spotlight. His new collection, which showed in Paris on Tuesday, was entirely made with fabrics from Mumbai. He said that a sort of “design imperialism” means that French fashion houses often play down that their fabrics are made outside France. “The houses which don’t admit it are perhaps afraid of losing their clientele,” Fournie
A court in Thailand sentenced a 27-year-old political activist to 28 years in prison on Thursday for posting messages on Facebook that it said defamed the country’s monarchy, while two young women charged with the same offense continued a hunger strike after being hospitalized. The court in the northern province of Chiang Rai found that Mongkhon Thirakot contravened the lese majeste law in 14 of 27 posts for which he was arrested in August last year. The law covers the king, queen and heirs, and any regent. The lese majeste law carries a prison term of three to 15 years per incident for
INSTABILITY: The country has seen a 33 percent increase in land that cultivates poppies since the military took over the government in 2021, a UN report said The production of opium in Myanmar has flourished since the military’s seizure of power, with the cultivation of poppies up by one-third in the past year, as eradication efforts have dropped and the faltering economy has led more people toward the drug trade, a UN report released yesterday showed. Last year, the first full growing season since the military wrested control of the country from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, saw a 33 percent increase in Myanmar’s cultivation area to 40,100 hectares, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report said. “Economic, security and governance disruptions