A bilingual police officer's language skills caught out an Albanian fraudster who was pretending to be Italian but didn't understand a word of it.
When Kleris Harizi was pulled over by police in a Vauxhall Astra, he produced an Italian passport in a false name.
But the 22-year-old was stumped by basic questions about his supposed homeland and was taken to a police station by suspicious officers.
When he got there, it was his misfortune to find the custody sergeant spoke Italian - and it soon became clear Harizi didn't.
Prosecutor Graham O'Sullivan told Newcastle Crown Court : "When asked basic questions about Italy he couldn't answer.
"It was the defendant's bad luck that the custody sergeant happened to speak Italian and started speaking to him in Italian.
"It became evident he wasn't Italian.
"He gave his real name and replied 'sorry'."
Harizi, of Bensham Avenue, Gateshead, admitted possessing a fraudulent article, obstructing police, driving otherwise in accordance with a licence and using a vehicle without insurance.
Recorder Dafydd Enoch QC sentenced him to six months behind bars and said he accepted Harizi had no "sinister motive" in having the fake licence.
The judge told him: "While you may not have been using the identity for anything other than getting about, other people use them for much more serious matters so the courts take a very serious view of that kind of offending."
The court heard Harizi, who arrived in the UK in 2017, has no other convictions on his record and has already spent 136 days in custody.
Joe Hedworth, defending, said it was a "one-off" offence and Harizi made no financial gain from it.
