A young German citizen spoke about how his life was destroyed after a London criminal used his ID to win a series of convictions that appear in the German database for his name.
Phantom's record has despaired the 24-year-old effectively blacklisted, and for the past four years he has been unable to get a job in his native Bonn, hindering the budding career and the beginning of his adult life.
Rami Battiff asked London metropolitan police to urgently treat him as he felt trapped and powerless after years of wasted efforts to delete records.
The confusion is described by a British judge as “confusion” that left awful stain on German national records.
Battikh's nightmare began in 2019 following a brief holiday in London. He traveled with a passport and German national identity card, but found Return's ID card missing or stolen.
He didn't think much about it, applied for a new ID card and two years later he finished his career viewing at Vodafone Finance in Bonn.
Battikh, a German dual-Tunisian citizen, quickly used Vodafone, the other was offered two jobs at the local tax office.
However, his excitement turned into an ongoing cafcask nightmare after routine employer checks showed him having a criminal history in London.
“I couldn't believe it. I told my employer that I'm not certain it wasn't me, that I was in Tunisia at the time and that I wasn't in the UK and that I had a stamp on my passport to prove it.
“But they just said they didn't just keep my words on police records,” Batik said.
His sister Rebecca said: “If we are shocked or scared by Germany, your mind will fall into your pants. That's what he feels.”
The issue began in March 2021 when another man was imprisoned in Wood Green Crown Court in London for 18 months for a series of crimes, including driving without a license or insurance, fraudulently using his batik's ID, and possession of an inappropriately acquired identity document.
After Bateck hired an attorney, he was first picked up at Wood Green Crown Court by a now-retired judge.
The emails the Guardian saw tried to describe his successor, Judge Dodd, as “confusion” that stained the German national records when he tried to get a Met in 2022 to fix the error.
Batik's nightmare got worse, with the Met's efforts to convince the database entry to be mistakenly continued without success. Fourteen months later, more crimes were recorded against stolen IDs in London, including possession of a knife in a public place.
When he discovered that his so-called criminal history had become long, he thought his life was over.
“I couldn't believe it, did I think what's wrong in the UK? They already said I'm not a criminal and the court confirmed this so my ID was stolen. But why can't they remove my name from the record.
Last year he wrote to the Met. Met appears to be an authority capable of changing his criminal history, but even so, his name has not been cleared.
“I can't live like this and I'm waiting indefinitely for my criminal history to be cleared. I don't understand that this process has been going on for six months and the resolution has not been successful.
“Please, what if you're in my shoes and feel helpless and trapped for a mistake beyond your control? I feel totally desperate,” he said.
At 24, he shares his story because he has no prospects for a job, has to sell his car to cover his bills and doesn't know what to do.
In April 2024, he wrote to Wood Green Crown Court. The only place he thinks he takes him seriously in the UK is providing the DNA or fingerprints he took at a German police station for relocation by Interpol.
“This scam destroys my life. I can't get a job. I will pass my fingerprints, hair if necessary… I can't live any more.
In a statement, Met said: “We are aware of this incident and continue to work with other agencies to proceed with this to correct the situation.
