Vain model convicted of lying about her age

An aspiring model who shaved eight years off her age in a bid to make it big in America narrowly escaped jail. British Saskia Porter, then 35, was convinced she had to recapture her late 20s at least on paper if the Hollywood job offer she had received was to going to become a signed contract.

Excited by the prospect it might also lead to presenting a television show, she lost little time forging her birth certificate and changing 1971 into 1979. Porter then used it to get a replacement passport, telling the authorities her dog had dined on her old one, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard.

Peter Zinner, prosecuting, explained that seven months later she sent it to the American embassy staff with a visa application. "They checked her passport against their records which showed she had not only travelled to the US in the past but that on this occasion her date of birth had been eight years earlier."



Porter, now 36, of Tyrwhitt Road, Lewisham, south-east London, pleaded guilty to making an untrue statement for the purpose of obtaining a passport on March 19 last year, and possessing false identity documents.

Passing sentence the judge told her: "Although, of course, normally it is a woman’s privilege not to tell the exact truth about her age, that does not apply when you are completing details for an application for a passport. Quite clearly this case is a serious matter.

"But while this case would ordinarily attract an immediate sentence of imprisonment due to the security risks to both the United States and the United Kingdom, it was motivated by vanity rather than for a nefarious reason. So I can find exceptional circumstances that would allow me to suspend the nine month sentence I would otherwise have passed for 12 months."