Adver reporting was used by police in Lincolnshire to oppose an application to run a bar.

West Holland District Council was due to consider an application to run the bar in Spalding by Aram Salar.

But the local police objected to the application, saying Mr Salar shared a name and date of birth with a former Swindon shopkeeper jailed in 2017.

He fled the country in 2012 while Swindon Borough Council officers were investigating his Manchester Road shop Istanbul Market

Lincolnshire Police said they found untaxed and foreign-labelled tobacco in the shop, which Mr Salar denied knowledge of.

Later investigators found similarly foreign-labelled tobacco and cigarettes under the floorboards of Mr Salar’s Roseberry Street home.

When he returned to the county in 2017 he was arrested and tried, but the case was dropped for lack of witnesses but he was sentenced to prison for two months for failing to appear at court.