ID fraudster saddles his victim with a criminal record

A German citizen says his life has been ruined by a London criminal who used his identity to rack up a string of convictions that appear against his name on a police database.

- Lisa O'Carroll

Rami Battikh, 24, has in effect been blacklisted and unable to get a job for the past four years in his native Bonn, stymieing a budding career and the start of his adult life.

He has written to the Metropolitan police begging officers to treat the matter with urgency because he feels trapped and powerless after years of trying to have the records deleted.

A British judge said it was a "mess" that had left a terrible stain on Battikh's record. His nightmare began following a short holiday in London in 2019. He had travelled with his passport and German national identity card but discovered on his return that the latter was missing.

He did not think too much about it, applied for a new ID card and two years later finished his vocational apprenticeship at Vodafone Finance in Bonn. Battikh, who also has Tunisian nationality, was soon offered two jobs, one with Vodafone and the other with a tax office.