The extraordinary lengths a binman went to as he tried to avoid jail by claiming to have served in the Army can be revealed in a set of fake photos he submitted to a court.
Paul Berryman was facing a mandatory five-year jail term after admitting a firearms offence when he stated he had served for nearly 30 years in the Parachute Regiment in the hope the court would look upon him more favourably.
But the sentencing judge became suspicious and ordered an investigation as ‘official’ military documents were littered with basic spelling mistakes.
Berryman was found to have served less then two weeks in the Army without finishing his basic training and was even jailed for a time during the period he claimed to be on active service – yet persisted in the lie during a trial for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
It was during this trial that he brazenly presented ‘evidence’ of his distinguished military career, including the photos.
One shows him sitting on a quad bike, dressed in camouflage gear and holding what appears to be a rifle in one hand and his helmet in the other. His exact whereabouts are unclear as the only background is a nondescript brick wall.
Another depicts him in action man pose, fording an unidentified river with water up to his waist as he carries a heavy backpack with his weapon slung over his shoulder.
Two others are of him walking past a row of trees but are of such poor quality that it isn’t even possible to tell if the individual is Berryman.
The jury took just 88 minutes to convict the 62-year-old of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
He ended up being jailed for six years – five for the firearms offence and another year for the lies he told the judge, jury and police as he tried to evade his original punishment.
A genuine former soldier, who didn’t want to be identified, has now heaped further shame on the former binman saying his actions were ‘disgraceful’.
The 50-year-old corporal, who served with the Royal Anglian Regiment between 1991 and 2002 and was posted to Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Germany, said: ‘He is an embarrassment to serving members and veterans of the armed forces.
‘Lying about his time served to save his own skin and taking the Army – even more so a distinguished regiment like the Paras – into disrepute is disgusting.
‘This disgraceful individual could never have served. We call people like this a Walter Mitty character.’
Police went to Berryman’s home in Dickleburgh, Norfolk, in 2018 and seized a shotgun.
He later admitted possession of a prohibited weapon and appeared at Norwich Crown Court to be sentenced.
The charge attracts the automatic jail term unless there are exceptional circumstances – which Berryman argued he was entitled to due to his military career, which he said had left him with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in war zones including the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falklands.
But when Judge Anthony Bate checked ‘official’ documents he handed over as proof, he was surprised to find words like ‘parachute’, ‘military’, ‘Falklands’ and ‘battalion’ had been spelt incorrectly.
The hearing was adjourned and checks showed that, while he had enlisted in the British Army on November 23, 1979, he was discharged less than a fortnight later without completing his basic training.
In a police interview, Berryman shamelessly maintained the deceit, insisting he had been medically discharged in 2007 and served with the Queen’s Regiment throughout, although he was attached to the second and third battalions of the Parachute Regiment.
He told officers: ‘I can’t understand why my records can’t be found. I have no reason to lie, I just want a quiet life.’
He complained his regiment had ‘turned away from me’ and insisted the ‘truth will out’.
During his trial in February, prosecutor Hannah Gladwell said Berryman had falsely claimed to have had a ‘distinguished military career between 1979 and 2007’ but had left due to PTSD caused by his ‘violent’ service.
This was faked, she explained, in the hope of avoiding jail for the shotgun offence.
Referring to the paperwork Berryman had provided to the judge at his sentencing hearing, Ms Gladwell told the jury: ‘If this was a genuine document from the British Army, you would have expected it to be spelt correctly.’
Senior military figures gave evidence during the trial, including Major Curt Vines, from the Parachute Regiment, and Stewart Hill, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army.
Both men queried the authenticity of the documents Berryman claimed to prove his military service.
The defendant also told the authorities that he had been based with the Parachute Regiment at Merville Barracks in Colchester, Essex, after his basic training.
But the prosecutor pointed out the regiment had only moved there from Aldershot, Hampshire, in 2008.
‘He couldn’t have served in the Parachute Regiment there in 1979 because it was not there,’ she told the jury.
The case was back in court last week for sentencing, when prosecutor Marc Brown said the shotgun was not intended ‘for a criminal purpose’.
But he added the ‘lie’ about military service was not only made in front of the original sentencing judge but also ‘put before a jury during trial’.
Berryman, who more recently has been living in Diss, had 13 convictions for 30 previous offences, nine of which took place during the period he claimed to be a soldier, he said.
They included a conviction at Norwich Magistrates Court in February 1989 – ten years into the period he claimed he was in the Army – for theft, criminal damage, failure to surrender to bail, two offences of taking a conveyance without authority and theft from a vehicle, for which he was jailed for six months.
Berryman, who represented himself at his trial and sentence hearing, claimed he had developed PTSD after having ‘lost two daughters’ and suffered depression after the breakdown of a 22-year relationship.
The decision to fake a military career was a ‘horrible mistake’ and he was ‘deeply sorry’, he added.
But Judge Bate criticised him for his ‘utterly bogus’ claims, adding: ‘The lie as to your military service was sustained right up to and during your 2025 trial.’