Two touching stories of ambition and initiative

An Australian man who faked being a Qantas engineer for 10 months has been sentenced to at least two years in jail for endangering thousands of lives. Timothy McCormack, 26, pleaded guilty to 42 charges of deception, including forging an engineer's licence.

Mr McCormack posed as a supervising engineer checking 30 Qantas 747 aircraft leaving Sydney airport. Before being exposed in July 2007, he is said to have put the lives of 12,000 people at risk.

The judge also criticised Mr McCormack for presenting four forged character references at an earlier hearing, in order to get a lighter prison term. [BBC]

---

[As referred to recently on HIGNFY] A man who posed as a barrister at a series of court hearings after buying his robes and wig on eBay was jailed for two years yesterday.

During his “very aggressive” appearances on behalf of clients in criminal and civil courts, Ian Clegg pretended to be a qualified barrister who had set up his own law chambers and was friendly with leading judges.

Clegg, 32, said he charged £75 an hour for his expertise. Would-be clients were impressed when he boasted of having “enough qualifications to run rings around” their opponents. In reality, he was a failed law student and a convicted fraudster. His legal training consisted of one year of a law degree at Teesside University.

Three people commissioned him to work on civil cases and he also took on two motoring offences, appearing several times at a magistrates’ court and a county court. However, when he represented clients in front of magistrates in Guisborough, North Yorkshire, the prosecutor and court officials became suspicious because he did not seem to know court procedure. [Times]