AC-2024-LON-002386 - [2025] EWHC 2999 (Admin)

The Appellant argued that the offence described in AW2, forgery committed on 21 August 2019 by purchasing a car, signing a sales contract using a forged signature (in the name of Tamas Meszaros), and handing the forged document to Balint Hertner for submission to the District Office of Papa, should fall under the Practice Direction category for “minor financial offences (forgery, fraud and tax offences)”. The Appellant contended, in particular, that the Judge erred by inferring harm to Balint Hertner, arguing there is no evidence in the Arrest Warrant that Hertner was suspected of criminality, and therefore the inference of indirect harm was unsupported.

The Respondent submitted that the Judge was correct to find that the offence of forgery of administrative documents did not fall within the categories set out in the Practice Direction as being “minor or trivial”. The offence, which is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three years, could not be considered a trivial act of dishonesty. The Judge was justified in finding the conduct “serious enough” because the forged document was allegedly provided to an innocent third party, who then submitted it to a government office, which was likely to have caused indirect harm or cast suspicion upon that innocent party.