Security guard's forged training records 'nearly shut down Birmingham Airport'
Birmingham Crown Court was told the forgeries could have had “catastrophic consequences” for airport safety
Birmingham Airport came close to being "shut down" after a security instructor forged training certificates to hide his own "ineptitude", a court has heard.
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Shoaib Iqbal, 40, admitted producing 85 fake documents to suggest 38 security staff had completed compulsory annual refresher training - which he had failed to organise.
Birmingham Crown Court was told the forgeries could have had “catastrophic consequences” for airport safety, with one compliance officer warning the airport could not “safely function and the whole operation could be shut down”.
Iqbal, from Saltley, pleaded guilty to making a false instrument with intent and has been handed a two-year suspended sentence.
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Iqbal was working as a training instructor for the contractor Mitie in December 2022 when security staff raised concerns that they had not received their annual training.
An internal airport audit then found his records were incomplete.
He initially insisted he had simply been “lazy in admin” and that the documents existed but had not yet been filed.
He later told a Mitie manager the missing paperwork was due to a printing delay.
But handwriting experts quickly detected discrepancies, and two Mitie employees confirmed that handwriting appearing under their names was not theirs.
Prosecutor Alison Slater, acting for the Civil Aviation Authority, told the court: “There doesn’t appear to be a motive for personal gain, it was more about covering up ineptitude."
She added: “There was little or no obvious planning. No sophisticated planning.”
Iqbal resigned in February 2023 after learning he was under criminal investigation.
Defence barrister Ben Brown said his client had been "overloaded" and overwhelmed by work, adding that Iqbal had simply "kept digging to cover his tracks".
Iqbal was sentenced to 10 days of rehabilitation activity, 200 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay £750 in costs.
Passing sentence, Recorder Kevin Hegarty KC told him "Fortunately no specific harm came about or can be identified.
"This was however an abuse of your position of trust to access the files and modify documents to make it look as though you had done your job.'