AN ambulance driver lived and worked illegally for months in York as he made about £6,000 to help support his family back in Brazil, the city’s crown court heard.

Oswald Jose Araujo De Neto, 33, got employment as a Deliveroo courier and with two cleaner firms using false Portuguese documents, said Rachael Landin, prosecuting.

But he had entered the UK on Christmas Day, 2019, using a Brazilian passport, and had been given a six-month visitor’s visa which didn’t allow him to work.

“At the time of his offence, the defendant believed he was simply sending money back to his family to help them,” said defence solicitor Kirsty Covey. “He accepts, however, this was still wrong.”

She said Araujo De Neto’s father could not work following a cycling accident that left him with brain trauma and couldn’t afford the medicines he needed.

As well as helping his parents, the son also helped pay the costs of his sister’s engineering university studies.

His ambulance driver job in Brazil had been poorly paid.

Araujo De Neto, who lived in Viking Road, Acomb, pleaded guilty to fraud by using fake ID to get employment, possession of a fake ID document and obtaining leave to remain in the UK by deception.

Jailing him for six months, the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris said: “The best thing for you is to serve a short period of imprisonment and for the immigration authorities to send you back as soon as possible.

A senior immigration officer attended court and told the judge when Araujo De Neto finishes his sentence, he will be taken straight from prison to an immigration detention centre and from there he will be deported back to Brazil.

Ms Landin said Araujo De Neto had worked for an average of 40 hours a week for 17 weeks for a York cleaning company and earned about £6,000.

Following his arrest nearly two years after his arrival, he told police his real purpose had been to find work. He had a fake national insurance card, a fake Portuguese driving licence and a fake Portuguese ID card for which he had paid a total of £700.

He refused to say who had them to him.

Ms Covey said Araujo De Neto’s pay as an ambulance driver in Brazil had been too little to help his family. So he had come to the UK.

He had been naïve and had used his real name on the fake documents which was probably how the immigration authorities had tracked him down.