Motorist Maris Frolovs has been jailed after sending a fake driving licence to the DVLA.

The 33-year-old paid 2,000 euros to someone in Latvia for the false document in 2017 and submitted it in the hope it would be swapped for a UK licence.

But police arrested him in March this year after pulling him over.

He told officers he committed the crime because he did not want to take the UK driving theory test due to the language barrier and he wanted to gain work as a delivery driver.

Now Frolovs has been jailed for six months at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

Maris Frolovs was jailed after pleading guilty to possession of an identity document with improper intent

The court heard police pulled over Frolovs on March 9 - and found three grams of amphetamine in his pocket.

Prosecutor Paul Spratt said: “The licence was identified as being false when he submitted it to the DVLA to substitute it for a UK licence."

Frolovs, of Clyde Road, Burslem, pleaded guilty to possessing an identity document with improper intent and possessing a class B drug. He has a previous conviction for drink-driving, driving without a licence and driving without insurance.

Maris Frolovs arriving at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court

Barry White, mitigating, said the defendant had been foolish and misguided.

Mr White said: “Either way, he accepts this was a false licence and he wanted to become a delivery driver. He wants to improve his employment chances. He says he will never do it again.”

Judge Paul Glenn told Frolovs his previous conviction was an aggravating factor.

Judge Glenn said: “In September 2017 you made an application to the DVLA for a British driving licence. You submitted a Latvian driving licence in exchange, which you knew full well was a counterfeit document.

“You were arrested on March 9 this year driving a car for which you could not have been licensed or insured.

“After you had been disqualified from driving in November 2015 you should have sought to obtain a licence through the proper channels.

“It seems you held no licence before you came to the UK. To have obtained a driving licence you would have had to have taken a theory test and a practical examination. To bypass that you decided to buy a false document. You paid 2,000 euros for it. You knew full well it was wrong. The fact that that sort of thing goes on in Latvia is no mitigation whatsoever.

“If your application had been successful the effect of it would have been that you would have been driving when plainly not qualified or competent to do so. The potential risk to public safety is obvious.

“It is so serious only an immediate custodial sentence is appropriate.”

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