Sentence cut for Watford counterfeiter

 A Watford man caught with high-tech machinery for making counterfeit identity cards today saw his prison sentence slashed on appeal by top judges.

Albert Toska, 32, of Weall Green, was jailed for four-and-a-half years after admitting possessing articles to make false documents, possession of false documents and making articles for sale in breach of copyright.

But today, Toska, who was jailed at Southwark Crown Court in March, had his sentence cut to three-and-a-half years by three top judges at the Court of Appeal.

Giving the judgment, Judge Martin Stephens QC, who sat today with Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Simon, said the sentence was "unnecessarily high". But Toska may have been saved from an even longer term by police, who raided his home before he could become more involved in identity card crime, the judge said.

He was caught out when officers searched his home in July of last year and found a specialist printer, used to make high quality identity cards, and an attached laminator. About 1,000 blank identity cards were also found, together with computer materials suggesting that he had sold DVDs with satellite navigation materials, in breach of copyright. Pleading guilty, Toska said he had not distributed any of the documents he made. They had been of poor quality, he said, and he received no financial benefit from his actions.

Sentencing him, the crown court judge said Toska would be sentenced for what he was going to do, rather than what he had actually done. He had intended to supply identity cards and, although they would not have been good enough to deceive immigration officials, they may have duped others.

Today, after considering an appeal by his lawyers, Judge Stephens said that, but for the prompt police intervention, he could have faced more serious punishment. But he continued: "In our judgment, the sentence was, in all the circumstances, unnecessarily high, bearing in mind there was no evidence of false documents that got into the public domain, whatever his intentions as to the future were.

"The appeal will be allowed to the extent that the total sentence will now be one of three-and-a-half years' imprisonment."