This takes you from when they caught him to now....very interesting reading about how the UK handled an Illegal American Immigrant.

Riddle of fraudster with stolen identity
By David Sapsted
(Filed: 18/10/2005)
A photograph of a fraudster who stole the identity of a dead baby has been issued by police in an attempt to identify him.



Christopher Buckingham


The man, who calls himself Christopher Edward Buckingham, took the identity in 1983 from a nine-month-old boy who died 20 years earlier. He used the birth certificate to obtain a national insurance number and passport.
Buckingham, who claims to be 42, was arrested after a passport check as he boarded a Calais-Dover ferry. He pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court last week to making an untrue statement to obtain a passport and faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced next month. Police believe that Buckingham, who at first claimed to be a lord and had notepaper bearing the crest of a title that has not been used for 200 years, is hiding a "terrible" secret.
Det Con Dave Sprigg, the Kent detective who led the investigation, said yesterday: "I think he has gone to such lengths to hide his identity - and even now, with the threat of prison, still refuses to reveal it - that he must have something terrible to hide. I want to know what that secret is.''
Buckingham met his Canadian wife Jody when he was backpacking in Germany in the early 1980s. They came to England in 1983 and married on Dec 7, 1984, in Watford.
Buckingham told his wife that he had been living on a kibbutz in Israel. The couple, who have two children - Lindsey, 19, and Edward, 17, divorced eight years ago.
When his ex-wife was told by police that they were suspicious about her ex-husband, she replied: "I feel exactly the same way. I'm longing to know who he really is."
Although he owned a three-bed semi in Northampton, Buckingham was living in Zurich and working as an IT consultant at the time of his arrest.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... buck18.xml
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'Jackal' who stole baby's name jailed
By David Sapsted
(Filed: 09/11/2005)
A mystery man who stole the identity of a baby who died more than 20 years ago was jailed yesterday, refusing to reveal his real name.
As the baby's mother talked of the agony that the impostor's arrest and trial had rekindled, the man known by her son's name of Christopher Buckingham was sent to prison for 21 months at Canterbury Crown Co


The mystery man stole the identity of Christopher
Buckingham, pictured with his mother Audrey Wing


Buckingham, who sometimes passed himself off as "Lord Buckingham" - even carrying notepaper bearing a coat of arms not used since the 18th century - was convicted last month of making an untrue statement to obtain a passport.
He was arrested in January at Dover as he returned to Britain. The court was told that, 23 years ago, he had taken the eight-month-old baby's identity by copying the method that the assassin had used in Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal.
Police believe that Buckingham, who says he is 42, has "something terrible" to hide. Sentencing him, Judge Adele Williams described the case as an "intriguing conundrum", adding: "Someone does not assume a false identity unless there is a very good reason."
Despite the police's best efforts, they do not know what that reason is. Neither does his ex-wife, Jody-Lynn Doe, whom he married in 1984. They had two children before divorcing in 1997.
Canadian-born Mrs Doe, who met Buckingham when they worked in Germany, said the episode had left her angry and her two children wanting to know who their father really was.
"What must he have in his background that would make him want to do such a thing?" asked Mrs Doe, who now lives in Wellingborough, Northants. She was not optimistic that her former husband would reveal who he was. "It's far easier to carry on with a lie than it is to own up," she said.
Dc David Sprigg, who investigated the case, said Buckingham's fingerprints and picture would be circulated through Interpol, and the police and Crown Prosecution Service would look at the possibility of further charges.
"I think he has gone to such lengths to hide his identity and, even now, still refuses to reveal it, that he must have something terrible to hide," said Dc Sprigg.
"I want to know what that secret is. What is he hiding? Has he done something in his past that he knows will get him into trouble?
"It's for that reason that we want to circulate his picture far and wide so that someone comes forward who knows who he really is. There must be some really serious reason for him to be so secretive."
Matthew Sherratt, defending, told the court yesterday that Buckingham planned to return to his home in Switzerland at the end of his prison sentence.
However, Judge Williams said: "He can't. He has no valid travel documents, or none that he has let the authorities know about."
The judge told Buckingham: "You have shown a lack of remorse and have actively obstructed in revealing your true identity. The obtaining of a false passport and therefore a false identity without explanation is a grave matter. This offence is aggravated by you obtaining a false birth certificate. You have caused trauma and distress because you have lived on this identity for 23 years. You have sought to contest this matter and only pleaded guilty at the last possible moment."
In Edinburgh, Audrey Wing, the mother of the real Christopher Buckingham, said the case had resurrected terrible memories of the death of her baby son during a caravan holiday on the South Coast. "It's been terrible. I'm having nightmares. I can't sleep and I can't leave the house without my husband," said Mrs Wing, 66, a mother of four.
She said the man who had stolen her baby's identity should stay behind bars until he revealed the truth.
"I can't believe it," said Mrs Wing. "All he's been charged with is the false passport. He should have been charged with everything he's done. He's laughing."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... buck09.xml
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Jail cut for 'aristocrat' who stole baby name
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
(Filed: 28/01/2006)
A bogus aristocrat who used a dead baby's name for 23 years and still refuses to reveal his identity won a reduction yesterday in a 21-month prison sentence imposed last November.
Three Appeal Court judges upheld argument by defence lawyers that the sentence was "manifestly excessive" and cut it to nine months.
The 43-year-old man, who appeared in court under his stolen name of Christopher Buckingham and had called himself "Lord Buckingham", admitted making a false statement to obtain a passport.
Patrick McGuigan, his counsel, said: "This was not the most serious case. Mr Buckingham lived an ordinary life for 23 years and committed no offence during that time."
He argued that it was wrong to speculate about why Buckingham used a false identity, adding that he should be given credit for the remorse he had shown towards his ex-wife and two children, who were kept in the dark about his true identity. His behaviour towards his family had never been "evil or abusive", counsel told Lord Justice Moses, Mr Justice Forbes and Mrs Justice Dobbs.
Buckingham, of Little Billing, Northants, pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court on Oct 11. He was jailed by Judge Adele Williams, who spoke of his "active obstruction" of the authorities.
The judge had heard how Buckingham carried out a "wholesale identity theft", assuming the persona of nine-month-old Christopher Edward Buckingham, who was born in Lambeth, south London, in 1962 and died the following year.
Buckingham's ruse was discovered when he was stopped by customs officials at Calais a year ago and suspicions arose about his passport
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... name28.xml


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Bogus aristocrat to be sent back to his family in Florida
By Paul Thompson in Tampa, Florida
(Filed: 17/07/2006)

A man who posed as a British aristocrat before being exposed as a former American serviceman is to be deported from the UK and banned from returning for at least five years.
Immigration authorities will escort the fake Lord Buckingham on to a Florida-bound plane this week after he lost an appeal to stay in Britain.
Charles Stopford, 44, who had claimed to be Christopher Buckingham, will be a free man when he sets foot on US soil. He was last seen by his parents and eight brothers and sisters in 1983 when he disappeared, telling them that he was travelling around the world.
They were unaware that he had settled in Britain, married and had two children, Lyndsey, now 20, and Edward, 17, and had adopted the bogus title of Lord Buckingham.
A family member said: "There is a lot to catch up on and we are just so happy to have him back.
"His mum, Barbara, cannot wait to see her eldest son. She believed he had died, so it is going to be a very emotional moment for her and all the family."
The family say Stopford has told them that a car accident had wiped out his memory of his life in America.
Stopford grew up in Orlando and left the US abruptly after being accused of plotting to blow up his boss at a fast food restaurant.
He was arrested in Dover 18 months ago during a routine passport check on his way back from France.
Stopford had stolen the identity of a dead baby in a ploy taken from the thriller The Day of the Jackal and he later adopted the Lord Buckingham title. He had convinced his Canadian-born wife, Jody, that he had inherited the title.
After being jailed for nine months on passport offences he still refused to reveal his true identity. His secret was exposed in May when his family in Florida saw his photograph on the internet.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... isto17.xml