A SOUTH African hotel manager who fraudulently applied for a British passport was entitled to one anyway.

A judge at Oxford Crown Court described it as a “supreme irony” that Ivan Fort, who runs the King’s Arms in Bicester, did not need to commit the identity theft to stay in this country.

The 65-year-old first applied in 1990 using the identity of British citizen Brian Fort.

He then renewed the passport 10 years later in 2000 and again a decade later in 2010. When the genuine Mr Fort tried to apply for his own passport he was investigated on suspicion of fraud.

Ivan Fort earlier admitted three counts of making untrue statements to procure a passport. Recorder Hodge Malek said: “The supreme irony is both of your parents are British... you would have been entitled to dual nationality.”

At Oxford Crown Court on Friday, Fort was ordered to do 300 hours’ unpaid work and pay £1,200 costs.