Episode 2 Fake Britain

Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

Welcome to Fake Britain!

Get down! Get your hands behind your back!

It's just an ordinary house. It could be anywhere in the country.

But this is a house that's filled with fakes,

and you may not know it, but your home could be full of them too.

During the series we'll be investigating the criminals trying

to get their hands on your cash by using forgeries, frauds and fakery.

And I'll be showing you how you can avoid being taken for a ride.

On today's show - some unexpected guests gatecrash a fake wedding.

The wedding's not going to happen today. You're under arrest.

The sophisticated fake £20 notes causing misery across the country.

He said, "You are going to prison."

I just could not believe that this was happening to me.

And the fake baby products that could kill.

You're likely to see internal bleeding of the organs.

Over 200,000 of us choose to tie the knot every year,

but not everyone's doing it for love.

There's a dedicated criminal industry using fake marriage

as a way around our immigration laws.

But unfortunately for some lying lovebirds,

the UK Border Agency has put itself on the guest list.

It's wedding day at Hillingdon Registry Office

for one happy couple.

And just around the corner

these surprise guests are dressed and ready for the big day.

The wedding's scheduled to take place today at 14:30 hours.

They're officers from the UK Border Agency.

And there's a good reason why lead officer Shahin

doesn't want to turn up to the ceremony late.

We've received notification from Hillingdon Council that what they

believe to be a fake wedding is going to be taking place this afternoon.

The intelligence they received from the Registry Office suggests

the bride and groom might not be your average loved-up couple.

Inside the underground car park of Hillingdon Registry Office,

the Border Agency officers get the invite they've been waiting for.

They're in the room, are they? OK, we're off.

And there's no time to lose.

When the officers arrive, the bride and groom are being held in a room.

Hello, there.

Susanna, you want to get up, please, for me?

This isn't exactly the wedding reception

the bride and groom had in mind.

We'll see you in two minutes, yeah?

The suspects need to be separated immediately

so they can't collaborate with each other to get their stories straight.

I'm going to ask you some questions, all right?

Shahin will question the groom, an Indian national,

whose student visa has expired.

In the room next door, his colleague Andy Kemp will question

the bride, who's from Hungary.

Going to start asking you some questions now.

Both officers are armed with the same set of questions,

designed to uncover the real truth behind this couple's wedding plans.

Where did you meet?

Where in Piccadilly?

You met in a park? In Piccadilly?

Which park?

Yeah, it's not quite the old classic love story.

Boy meets girl, boy can't quite remember where he met girl.

What did you talk about? What languages do you speak?

You speak Hungarian?

Give me two Hungarian words.

"Yo" means "good".

You speak three or four words of Hungarian.

The bride-to-be and her fiance can't have that much to talk about.

Whilst the groom speaks English but barely any Hungarian,

Andy Kemp is discovering that she speaks no English at all

and needs a translator to understand his questions.

Can you give me the names of the people living there?

INTERPRETER TRANSLATES

WOMAN REPLIES IN HUNGARIAN

She doesn't know the names of any of her supposed housemates.

Andy passes this information on to Shahin.

We've asked Susanna who else lives in your house.

Bearing in mind you live in a shared house.

She's been living there for almost six months...

..and she doesn't know who else lives in the house at all.

That's very strange.

Not no, yes! Yes, that is strange.

Something about this couple's love story just isn't adding up.

Surely the groom knows the names of his prospective in-laws.

The mother's name? What's her mother's name?

If somebody asks me what my fiance's mother's name is,

I will know just like that.

I'll put down "I don't know," yeah?

Because you haven't been able to tell me.

You just can't remember.

Can't remember, OK.

While he doesn't know his prospective mother-in-law's name,

there is one name the groom seems to be very familiar with.

Dad, what's his name?

Richard.

Her brother's name?

He's called Richard as well?

Father and brother are both called Richard. OK.

Where do you live?

Richards?

Yeah.

Everything's Richard.

When questioned about what they did together the previous evening,

things get even more confusing.

Can you tell me what you did last night?

INTERPRETER TRANSLATES

So you ate your burgers, you sat on your bed

and you listened to music on your laptop.

Their stories don't match and there's only one real conclusion.

It's clear to me and anyone who would hear this interview,

that you are not in a genuine relationship with this woman.

Um...

The wedding's not going to happen today. OK?

This man thought today he'd be reading his vows.

Instead Shahin is reading him his rights.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence. You understand?

You're under arrest.

Yeah.

He's going to be wearing handcuffs instead of a ring.

And rather than being joined in holy matrimony with his fake bride,

he's found himself joined at the wrist

to a burly Border Agency officer.

He'll be taken to an immigration detention centre and from there

we'll set removal directions for him to be removed back to India.

The groom's currently awaiting deportation.

WPC: Don't touch me like that! Let's go, please.

WOMAN SHOUTS IN HUNGARIAN

The bride-to-be is rather unhappy about being left at the altar

and the police have been called in to remover her from the premises.

There's not enough evidence for the UK Border Agency to arrest her

and as she's an EU citizen she's left to make her own way home.

It's a small win. You have to take the wins when you can.

Whether we'll win the war in due course, the jury's still out,

but certainly the small battles, we're winning.

It's not the first or last time this has happened, and coming up

we delve into the world of the fake wedding gang that made thousands.

This gang was making anywhere between £8,000 and £10,000 per fake wedding.

How many of these have you got in your purse or wallet?

A clean, crisp £20 note.

Well, hopefully not too many, because this one is fake,

although it looks and feels just like the real thing.

And that's the bad news.

The days when you could bank on being able to spot

a dodgy £20 note are long gone.

Counterfeiters have upped their game and you and I, we're the targets.

Previously, fake Britain was on the scene when City of London Police

uncovered one of Britain's largest ever counterfeit money operations.

The gang were caught red-handed with the professional-quality

printers, inks, papers and other equipment needed to produce

millions of pounds-worth of fake money.

Ringleader Anthony Higgs is now serving eight years in prison.

But there are other gangs out there still producing fake notes

of high quality.

Notes that are causing havoc across the country.

Purley in Surrey has seen a blizzard of fake notes in recent months.

Sunny Patel runs a convenience store just off the local high street.

And business was good until a routine visit to the bank

with the shop's takings burst his bubble.

What happened was, when we did our banking, we got a letter

from Alliance & Leicester and they said, "You've got a fake £20 note."

We think, "OK, once it could happen."

Unfortunately for Sunny, the fake 20 wasn't a one-off.

It just started occurring more and more.

So then afterwards we realised there is a lot of people

coming around here with fake notes.

And things got worse for Sunny as he realised that

a lot of the cash being handed over in the Good News convenience store

was very BAD news for business.

I've been so affected, I've had, like, £1,000-worth so far.

We're a small convenience store

and money at the end of the day counts for us. Every penny counts.

Sunny knows plenty of other local business owners.

He reckons he's not the only one who's been taken in by dud 20s.

At the moment in Purley, in Croydon, there's

so many fake notes going around.

There's an unbelievable amount and very good forgery.

Sunny's always handled cash and prides himself on his ability

to spot a fake note just by looking at it.

Until now, that is.

This is a real £20 note right over here.

As you can see, it looks crystal-clear.

Now I'm going to bring a duplicate right next to it.

Now, as you can see, you can't tell which is fake or real.

It's such a good quality, it's unbelievable.

The texture, everything, looks the same.

The icon there, there's an icon there.

They're both shiny as each other.

So it's very difficult to tell in this country what a fake note is

and what a fake note isn't.

Fake £20 notes have become so sophisticated,

it's not only business owners who have trouble spotting them.

We took to the streets to see if the great British public could

spot a fake £20 banknote.

Both of them are real.

Even the strips that I would normally look for, like,

the hologram strips and stuff, look really, really similar.

I would probably just take it and not even think about it.

I don't think I would have spotted it was wrong.

I'd just put it in my purse.

I wouldn't look at it at all. I'd just think, "Cheers!"

I think I'd accept it, probably.

And only when I got it pushed back at me I'd know it was wrong.

That's too good.

Most of the people we spoke to were fooled by these

sophisticated fake £20 notes.

We wanted to find out more about where these notes were

coming from and what can be done about them,

so we paid a visit to the Bank of England.

Deep in the vaults,

surrounded by billions of pounds of REAL cash, Head of Notes,

Victoria Cleland,

explained that fake money isn't a recent phenomenon.

Counterfeit notes have actually been in circulation as long as real notes.

I mean, it's a sad fact that as soon as banks started issuing notes,

counterfeiters started counterfeiting them,

and that's the same pretty much across the world.

And the counterfeiters aren't just small-time criminals.

There are a number of organised criminal gangs in the UK that

do produce counterfeit notes,

and, with the police, the bank are always trying to capture them.

But they've been busy.

Recent figures show that in one year alone,

there were about 375,000 counterfeit notes out there.

That's £6.3 millions-worth of fake notes flying around.

And with those notes getting more sophisticated,

it's getting harder to spot them with the naked eye.

Luckily, there's some portable technology out there that can

give us a helping hand.

This machine, if you put a genuine note through it,

it will say that's fine.

But you could take a counterfeit note, again of a 20,

put this into the machine...

BEEPING ..and it rejects it.

That's saying this is a counterfeit note.

Other, cheaper, machines use ultraviolet light to tell you

if you've got a fake note.

So this is the genuine £20 note

and you'll see a very clear diamond green and red.

If, however, I put the counterfeit £20 note in...

..you'll see none of that extra colour coming through.

The counterfeiters just haven't been able to replicate that.

But, Head of Notes, how big a problem are these counterfeit bills?

While the probability of receiving a counterfeit note

is absolutely tiny -

a fraction of one per cent of all notes out there is counterfeit -

it is important for people to be aware that there is a potential risk

there, and the best thing to do is check notes when you receive them.

So the Bank of England says fake money isn't a big problem,

but it is out there and, when it turns up,

it has the power to destroy lives.

Coming up, we see how the new breed of £20 notes can lose you

a lot more than your business.

They can take your pets away from you.

I felt sick cos I thought, "My babies have gone!"

And even get you locked up.

I thought, "God, what's going to happen?

"I'm never boing to see England again!"

Every year, proud parents spend a small fortune on

sporty buggies like this.

But, as you may have guessed,

because it's the Fake Britain house, this is a fake!

Have a look at this.

The real thing, and Noah is safely tucked up inside it.

Now, this model could cost you over £500.

With that kind of money on offer, no wonder the fakers are interested.

But they're not necessarily interested in safety.

And that's bad news for babies.

Kelly Turner is a mum-to-be who likes her prams. A lot!

I love the fabrics, I love the textiles,

the different chassis finishes.

Anything that's unique, I love.

This is a Phil & Teds E3 in red.

This is a Buzz 3, with three wheels, in a strawberry fabric.

This is a Maxi Cosi Mura 3.

I actually bought this to match an outfit I was wearing to a wedding.

I think it's fair to say I know my prams.

Yes, Kelly is a pram-head.

But when baby number three was on the way, there was

only one pram that would do - the Bugaboo Cameleon.

With Bugaboos having such a great reputation for quality, they're also

great for customising, so from our point of view

I could have one buggy and make it look like 20 different buggies.

Kelly trawled the internet and it wasn't long before what

seemed like a perfect brand popped up.

It was a lady selling it that had just had a baby shower and her and

her partner had bought one already, so she wanted to sell the excess.

There was no doubt about it, this was her pram,

and she had her heart set on it.

So she and her husband Sam went ahead

and paid a hard-earned £663 for it.

When the buggy actually arrived,

it was like Father Christmas had arrived.

We ran into the front room and Sam carried the parcel through behind me.

And it was just really lovely. It was really exciting.

Husband Sam had worked long and hard to get the money for the pram.

I wanted to save the pennies and make sure we got the right one.

So I'm working Saturdays, you know, staying late,

trying to save up the money for this.

And at first sight the Bugaboo buggy and its packaging looked perfect.

When you open it out, this is what you get.

There's the tailored fabrics, which have the branding on.

And as well as that, it also has the owner's manual,

which again is branded, it's on heavy-quality paper.

It's got the instructions.

Um, they're very clear, there's no spelling mistakes.

None of these things make you think that it's anything other than

a genuine Bugaboo.

But then looks can be deceiving.

And as they assembled the pram,

it was clear that it fell way below expectation.

The quality just wasn't there.

This pram was a sham.

Look at that! Both wheels...

Now, I'm no expert on buggies, but...it's quite self-explanatory.

It's not right. If that came off going down a hill,

Kelly, you've got no chance of stopping it, have you?

And what about the brakes?

We've noticed that if Sam pushes the buggy, one wheel is static

and the other wheel is still moving.

It doesn't take a pram expert to know that there was something

seriously wrong with Kelly's new pram.

Armed with the pram's serial number,

she called Bugaboo to find out what was going on.

I said, "Could you confirm what model it's for?"

And she said, "For a 2009 silver model,"

and that's when the alarm bells started to ring, because the model

I had in front of me was black and it was absolutely a 2011, 2012 model.

And that's when I really panicked.

Bugaboo had confirmed Kelly's worst fears, that she and Sam

had indeed spent £663 on a fake Bugaboo Cameleon.

The fakers were using genuine Bugaboo serial numbers

on their fake Bugaboo prams.

With just weeks to go before giving birth to her daughter,

Kelly was inconsolable.

My face fell. I was just devastated. I just knew straight away.

I couldn't believe it!

It sounds really dramatic,

but it really took some of the shine off the pregnancy

because it was such a worry, because we had this lump of metal

and fabric that we could do nothing with.

I was very angry.

For someone to do that, for someone to make a fake buggy...

try and sell it on for some money, to make money

and got no conscience about putting a baby in it...

don't care about the risks of it. I was very angry.

The fake Bugaboo buggy left the couple without a trustworthy pram

to put their new baby in.

It's been awful. It really has.

It's been so upsetting and, you know,

the worry that the child, the baby's going to come home from the hospital

and we're not going to have a buggy is huge.

Thankfully, Kelly and Sam did manage to get a genuine safe pram

in time for the arrival of their new baby daughter a few weeks later.

We spoke to Bugaboo about the counterfeiting of their prams.

They said:

But prams aren't the only baby product out there being faked.

Coming up, we investigate the fake child car seats putting

children's lives at risk.

It could lead to strangling of the neck.

Earlier, we followed the UK Border Agency on an operation to

stop a fake wedding in its tracks.

The wedding's not going to happen today.

But this fake wedding isn't an isolated case.

Take a look at these happy couples.

The kisses, the confetti.

These aren't wedding videos.

This is covert surveillance filmed by the UK Border Agency

of a series of fake weddings

and they were all arranged by one fake wedding criminal gang.

The main ringleader

and orchestrator of the fake wedding gang was Maria Loureiro.

She lived in London. She was an interpreter by occupation.

The perfect cover to participate in hundreds of weddings.

Maria Loureiro seen here at Liverpool Airport was

the Portuguese facilitator of the fake weddings.

First, she'd arrange for Portuguese brides to fly into the UK.

Maria's role included introducing the brides to the

grooms for the first time.

Taking them to a number of institutions in the UK

to support the applications.

Setting up bank accounts and utility companies, all of which were fake.

After the European brides had the fake documentation they needed

for a marriage in the UK, they were then ready to marry

their Indian grooms at registry offices across the North of England.

And these couples weren't tying the knot for love.

The fake weddings take part for two reasons.

The first reason is for the Indian nationals to marry a European national.

The Indians then get to stay in the UK.

The other obvious advantage for the EU nationals, in this case,

the Portuguese, is that they were able to make some money.

Some serious money.

Maria was making anywhere between £8,000 and £10,000 per fake wedding.

When this conspiracy was at its peak there were at least two weddings

taking place every week.

So it was conceivable that Maria was earning £20,000 every week

for her part in the fake weddings.

The brides themselves were earning anywhere between £500 and £2,000.

With just such huge profits at stake, Loureiro had to make

each fake wedding look as real as possible.

The brides went to a lot of effort with their dress.

They were getting off the plane wearing normal kind of western European tops.

And then 24 hours later they'd be in full Indian dress

with Indian jewellery.

And on the wedding day itself, Maria Loureiro made sure

the ceremony looked as convincing as possible.

There's anything from confetti to genuine family members turning up

with children, taking photographs.

And of course, wedding pictures can be crucial if you're trying

to convince someone that you should be allowed to stay in the UK.

So Maria Loureiro would take the couple to local parks

for photo opportunities.

There's even one of a bride and a groom play-acting around a tree.

But Maria Loureiro became anxious that attending

so many different fake weddings at the same registry office

might raise eyebrows so she decided that blondes might have more fun.

She wanted to create a fake identity.

So she could continue to keep using Blackburn Registry Office

and deceive the registrars.

But it was the platinum blonde disguise that led to the

gang's downfall.

Her disguise most certainly backfired on her.

She went for a particular shade of blonde which was really

different than her normal hair, and that really alerted the registrars

and then consequentially the Border Agency.

The UK Border Agency sprang into action with Operation Frampton.

A covert mission to film the fake weddings

and gather enough hard evidence to take down the fake wedding gang.

It didn't take them long to capture the tell-tale signs that these

weddings were not what they seemed.

Some of the wedding breakfasts weren't as romantic

as you might expect.

It certainly isn't normal that they have the wedding breakfast in McDonald's.

On the most important day of their life and then they're enjoying some fast food at other ends of the table.

The UK Border Agency finally had enough video evidence to

arrest the fake wedding gang.

The gang received in excess of 18 years imprisonment.

The main organiser, Maria, she was sentenced to 45 months

and all the brides and grooms took sentences between 14 and 18 months.

This gang, without question,

had the capability to be one of the most prolific gangs that we

would have seen doing fake marriages in the northwest.

Earlier, we saw how fake £20 notes are bruising British business

and how the fakes are getting so good

that you'll probably need a machine to spot them

but right across the country innocent members of the public

are falling prey to fake money,

sometimes with heartbreaking consequences.

In Leeds, Kim Sewards has her hands full with two children

and three dogs.

Give me Fifi as well.

All of this while running the charity that was set up

in the name of her daughter, Kiah.

She had a massive fit.

And I took her to the doctor's and she had a CT scan

and she had a brain tumour.

After a life-saving operation, Kiah made a full recovery and mum,

Kim, wanted to find a way to help others going through the same thing.

We agreed to set up Kiah's Dream and it helps people like me

that had no information whatsoever.

Busy with home life and running the charity,

Kim was left with little choice when three dogs became five.

Kim decided to sell the puppies on the internet.

A chance to make someone happy and for the money to go to a good cause.

This is the actual advert and it says boy and girl Chihuahua.

It says that £100 from each sale will go to Kiah's Dream.

With two cuddly Chihuahua puppies on offer, it wasn't long

before they got some interest.

A guy phoned, really interested in them.

And I thought, yeah, we'll let them go, he's nice,

sounds nice, they're going to a good home.

But when the puppies' prospective new owners turned up,

something about them wasn't quite right.

The door went and there were two skinny runty looking lads.

They didn't look like they sounded on the phone but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Whilst the men were a bit rough around the edges,

their money looked OK.

It was just a nice big wad of £20 notes. Very crisp looking. Nice.

But the deal was about to go horribly wrong.

They very quickly scarpered out the door

and that's when I thought something's wrong, really wrong.

Taking a closer look at the £20 notes, Kim realised they weren't

what they appeared to be.

I checked every 20 under the light

and every single 20 were fake. £700 of fake 20s.

Shocking. I felt sick.

And the realisation that she'd lost her puppies for fake cash

left Kim truly shaken.

I thought I was going to collapse.

I fell to the floor because I thought my babies have gone.

It made me just a nervous wreck.

I couldn't go out of the house for days.

I was scared they were going to come back, do something else,

try and get the other puppy.

But it's Kim's daughter, Kiah, who's really distraught about the puppies.

She just wants to know what happened to them.

I thought they'd either get killed or they've been

thrown into a lake in a carrier bag and all that.

I do miss them because... Erm...

Mum... One minute.

They're not our doggies any more.

Some kid will be looking after them

and playing with them lots in the garden.

KIAH SOBS AND LAUGHS

The fake money is a double blow for the family.

Not only have they lost the puppies but Kiah's brain tumour charity

won't now be getting the donation that it needs.

It would have been £200 and it would have helped so much. I was gutted.

I'm really, really upset that that's going to lose out my charity.

It's made Kim much more suspicious about the money that she

comes into contact with.

Now I'm a little bit more careful because if you use

it in the wrong place and you have no idea because they're so good.

They can get you into trouble.

And trouble is exactly what Anne West

and her husband Barry from Wales ran into.

Each year for the last 18, they've swapped the rolling Welsh countryside

for the exotic surroundings of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

The main attraction of going to Abu Dhabi for us is the sunshine.

The people. Just the way of life.

Their last trip began like any other

with Anne withdrawing £2,000 from her local bank.

But it was when they arrived in Abu Dhabi

and Anne tried to change her British pounds into the local currency,

the United Arab Emirates dirham,

that the holiday dream started turning sour.

We were just told one of the £20 notes was a fake one.

We said, it can't be fake, I brought it from my bank.

And then a load of people gathered around us that were bank employees.

To make sure we weren't going to run for it I suppose. I don't know.

At first, the couple weren't overly concerned.

Barry and I were standing there just sort of a bit laughey and jokey

really, fully expecting to walk away and they would keep that note.

But then the police turned up.

And Anne and Barry realised it wasn't very funny any more.

I did realise that they thought that I was this...

counterfeiting grandmother or whatever but I did say to them...

I'm just an ordinary everyday little grey-haired old grandma.

Granny or not, the police weren't messing around with someone

who they believed might be a master counterfeiter.

They immediately transferred Anne and Barry to a prison

some way out of town where the man in charge had some very bad news.

He said you have to stay, you are going to prison,

your husband can go.

We were stunned. We were numb.

I think that's the right description, we were numb.

I just could not believe that this was happening to me.

Barry went off, he was allowed to just say goodbye quickly

and that was that.

Off he went. Into the dark night.

Anne was now all alone inside a prison cell.

I just lay down on this bunk bed.

Dirty mattress. No sheets.

Dirty pillow, no pillowcase, no anything, no blankets, nothing.

Laid on that and just thought I've got to go to sleep.

I've got to forget about it.

I'll hopefully wake up and it'll be a bad dream.

But this was no bad dream. It was the real thing.

Anne was being held on suspicion of counterfeiting money

and she was starting to struggle with the idea.

I just felt as if it couldn't really be happening.

I was...I don't know, sort of...closed down inside.

When it was time to appear in front of the judges,

Anne thought things would finally be cleared up. No such luck.

Two of the three judges said guilty.

And so back to prison.

I thought, God, what's going to happen?

I'm never going to see England again. I, you know, my family.

It was a desperate time for Anne and in prison her mood continued

to darken.

I thought, I'm not going to get out of here.

And I can't, I can't be like this. This can't be the rest of my life.

So I was trying to think of what I could do that would sort of end it.

Get me out of it.

If this is going to be my life it's, it's not worth living.

Anne's husband Barry knew he needed to act quickly.

The emotional state that Anne was in was very, very bad.

She was sobbing.

She was saying why me, why me, what have I done to deserve this?

Barry did everything he could to clear Anne's name,

contacting the embassies in Abu Dhabi and London.

All of a sudden the news they'd been waiting for came in.

One of the prison warders said, "British, come".

So I got up and followed her through. And she said, "You go".

Just like that,

Anne's three-day ordeal in an Abu Dhabi prison was over.

The authorities finally understood she was an innocent victim of

a fake banknote and not a counterfeiting criminal mastermind.

Back in Wales,

she realised it wasn't going to be over quite that quickly.

I was in a bad state. I was sleeping all the time.

I was just sitting around like a zombie not doing anything,

not eating.

The memory I have of Anne in prison, in a very bad state,

sobbing her heart out will live with me forever.

The emotional impact of that one £20 note really has...

Scarred us for life.

It's amazing to think something that small,

really that insignificant could have caused all this trouble.

For Anne and Barry, time has proven a great healer.

Amazingly their experience hasn't put them off

holidaying in Abu Dhabi.

These days, the first thing the Wests do before going on holiday

is run all their money through a counterfeit note checker.

Wherever we go there's always room for our friend in the suitcase.

Earlier on we heard how a heavily pregnant mum lost over £600.

On a worryingly rickety fake buggy.

Fakers making money out of parents who are trying to get

the best for their kids at the best price is one thing

but when it puts those kids at risk, that's quite a different matter.

Now this car seat is supposed to be there

to protect your child in the case of an accident.

But as you're about to see, it does anything but.

It's a fake and it's on sale online right now.

Hannah Davies from Birmingham Trading Standards is worried

about the rising number of fake baby products coming into Britain.

A worrying new trend is a trade in fake car seats like this one.

It's very, very flimsy material.

More like a child's bib than a car seat, I think you'll agree.

Frankly, the fakers of this car seat haven't done a very good job of it.

Oh, there you go. Well, it's obviously not sewn in very well.

It's a baby product with suspect safety credentials.

Many of the claims that are made on these instructions are fake.

This ought to meat a European standard.

Clearly it doesn't, it therefore makes it fake in that respect.

Hannah was so concerned about fake safety labels on potentially

dangerous car seats that she decided to dig a little deeper.

People look for these labels and if the car seat isn't approved

then unfortunately, you know, you're dicing with death literally.

She took to the Internet to see whether we might be able to

buy a fake and potentially dangerous car seat.

It took her just seconds to find one.

Portable child safety seat qualifies to the ECE standard regulation.

The car seat claims to meet a strict European safety

regulation known as ECE R44 but Hannah's not so sure.

Birmingham Trading Standards

and Fake Britain were so concerned about the safety

claims on this car seat that we bought it

and sent it for testing at the Transport Research Laboratory.

Hamish McPhillips from TRL's Child Safety Centre is

an expert when it comes to testing the safety of children's products.

And he's immediately spotted a problem with ours.

A seat must be released by one single action.

This is so that if you have an accident,

you need to get the child out quick, you know, the car may be on fire.

With this seat you can't actually do that.

Even from a first quick inspection by eye, Hamish can tell

there's something not quite right about this car seat's safety claims.

The seat we have here has got the approval label

on the instruction markings but from what we've seen

of the seat just visually, it doesn't meet the requirement.

Now it's crunch time.

How will the car seat bought by Birmingham Trading Standards

and Fake Britain fair in a crash test?

A child-sized crash test dummy will be used to analyse

whether the car seat would protect a child in an accident.

This is the clay which we'll use to replicate the internal

organs of the Child and look for any damage or intrusion into that clay.

After the test we can take this out and see for any signs of injury.

The test involves strapping the crash test dummy into the car seat

and then accelerating the seat into a wall at 30 miles an hour

to simulate a car crash.

Tests like this can be dangerous so the area needs to be clear.

The initial results are shocking.

So...first reaction is we can see the belt's held quite heavily

on the neck there so it could lead to strangling of the neck.

And what's happened to the seat itself?

The shoulder harness has cracked the polystyrene guide.

Now we can remove here we can see part of the damage to the seat.

The structure's actually broken here.

It's quite shocking to see that failure.

But the most devastating evidence is revealed

when they check the dummy.

So as we can see with the clay for this one we've seen a deep

penetration of the clay there. It's been cut into.

We'd be likely to see internal bruising or internal

bleeding of the organs which we'd be really concerned about.

Hamish is so worried by the results of the test that he

investigates further with a frame by frame analysis of the crash.

You can see the lap belt here actually disappearing

into the dummy's abdomen.

We'd be likely to see really severe internal injuries

to the child's organs.

Another concern is the diagonal belt we can see up here riding right

next to the neck.

It's very likely that there's some serious neck injuries.

It's a miserable safety failure for the car seat we've bought.

And there's no longer any doubt in Hamish's mind about the seat's

safety credentials.

Looking at the instruction manual we can see the approval label on here.

This would appear to be a fake claim that the seat's been approved.

The results of the test, the breakages,

the clay damage to the clay, we would not be able to give the seat

this approval label if we were to test it here.

Birmingham Trading Standards are using the shocking results

of our car collision test as evidence.

The seller of the dangerous car seats has now been tracked down

and investigations are ongoing.

That's all from Fake Britain. Bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd