Charles Stopford

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Charles Albert Stopford III (b. 1961?) is an impostor who in 1983 assumed a false identity using a technique described in the book The Day of the Jackal, involving the birth certificate of a deceased baby, Christopher Edward Buckingham, who would have been approximately the same age as him. Several years, he began to use the title Earl of Buckingham.

He lived the life of a nobleman for 22 years until a passport inconsistency brought him to the attention of the British police in 2005 when he attempted to board a cross-Channel ferry in Calais, France. He was working as an information technology security consultant in Switzerland at the time. He refused to give his real name and was as a result sentenced to 21 months in jail on November 8, 2005 but this was reduced in January, 2006 to 9 months after the UK Court of Appeal found that the original sentencing judge (Ms. Adele Williams) had acted out of her authority.

Attempts to determine his identity continued with the secret services attempting as to whether or not he was an ex-East-German spy, until his father pointed out to police that he was a former U.S. Navy sailor from Florida who had disappeared in 1983 after a failed attempt to blow up his boss with a pipe bomb. He said he was 100% sure from photographs that the bogus Earl was his son, with his son's identity confirmed as Charles Albert Stopford III after fingerprint comparisons were taken. His ex-wife and children have expressed hurt and intrigue at the deception.