A devious trickster’s plot to avoid paying child maintenance by having his friend take a DNA test on his behalf backfired with both men receiving suspended jail terms.
A court heard Stephen Lord’s ‘act of gross stupidity’ was ‘doomed to failure’ – as the friend who took the test under his name, Simon Brooks, had attached his photograph.
The attempt to hoodwink the authorities three years ago came to light after the child’s mother was told the DNA sample was not a match.
When she asked to see the photograph of ‘Lord’ provided with the sample, she recognised it was not him.
Sentencing the pair, at Hull Crown Court, Judge John Thackray KC said: ‘This was an act of gross stupidity doomed to failure.’
