Many people will be familiar with Frederick Forsyth’s novel, The Day of the Jackal, published in 1971.

In the novel, the assassin searches a graveyard to find the headstone of a child who has died and with whom he shares the same year of birth. Using the information the assassin applies for a birth certificate in the name of the child, and uses this to obtain a passport. With his new identity the Jackal sets out to plot an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, foiled at the last moment by the French police.

Thirty five years later, deceased identity fraud is no longer a work of fiction but Britain’s fastest growing identity theft crime which now affects up to a staggering one in seven of all people who die.