AN ILLEGAL immigrant who used a fake passport to get two jobs in care homes has been spared a jail term.

Onayinka Ajorin was also found to have a number of other documents in her false name when police went to her home.

But after hearing the 48-year-old, who saw her mother and husband both killed in her homeland, has now applied for asylum in the UK a judge decided not to jail her.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court there was a mystery over who the woman really is.

He said: “The defendant, having arrived in the country as an illegal immigrant, at some stage either before or after came into possession of a document which has most of the outward appearance of a Portuguese passport in the name of Patricia Oliveira.

“It is not a genuine Portuguese passport: those who know have examined and it is a forgery.”

He said she then used the document to get work at two care homes, which she was not entitled to do.

“There is some suggestion she had used it to obtain other work. It is quite clear she had a number of documents in the name Patricia Oliveira. She sent a number of job applications in the name of Patricia Oliveira."

He said the two care homes where it is known she worked, Ashbury Lodge, on Marlborough Road, and Langton House, in Wroughton, both spoke well of her.

However, he said a psychiatric report prepared for the court was in a third name and it was not know whether she was called Onayinka Ajorin or Ajorin Onayinka.

“It is all something of a mystery,” he said.

“One thing we can say, convictions are not against names but fingerprints and on the fingerprints on the defendant in the dock there are no convictions.”

Ajorin, of Whitehead Street, pleaded guilty to possessing a false identity document with improper intention and two counts of fraud.

She denied a third allegation of fraud, relating to a claim she tried to use the document to get a bank loan, which was left to lie on file.

Con Fernandes, defending, said his client was a mother-of-three who fled Africa following attacks on her Christian church.

In the first incident he said she had to pull her mother, who was killed, away from the fire at the building.

“In the second attack on the same church, when it was rebuilt, she lost her husband who survived for a short while after.

“Two critical events which left her alone with two children. Initially she had two boys in Africa, latterly a daughter now nine years old."

When she arrived in the UK he said she didn't claim benefits, as she couldn't, but got herself a job and used the passport to do it.

He said she used money she earned to send back to her sons, who are in their 20s and still living in Africa, and support her daughter here.

Passing sentence Judge Tim Mousley QC said: “These are serious offences and they are far too prevalent nowadays, it happens too often.

“I have read everything that has been provided to me: psychiatric report, references and the pre-sentence report.

“I have come to the conclusion that there are just enough exceptional reasons to suspend the period of imprisonment on you.”

He imposed an eight month jail term suspended for two years.