WORKERS at a driving test centre were stunned when an Albanian man told them eating British food had changed his appearance – including the shape of his ears.

Lefter Duka, 33, had booked in for a driving theory test but the man who turned up at the reception desk looked nothing like the picture on his provisional licence.

He was shorter, stockier and more bearded than Mr Duka – but insisted it was his diet that had altered his look.

The real Lefter Duka, from Gloucester, was then prosecuted when he turned up for a driving test himself.

Paula Davies, a test centre administrator told magistrates in Gloucester: "We brought up the point that he didn't look like the photo on the licence and he said that the food here had made him put on weight compared with where he was from.

"We said that his ears were different and he said the same thing – that the food was at fault.

"We said his eyebrows were much bigger on the photo and he said he had shaved them."

Staff were not satisfied that the man was Mr Duka and they refused to let him take the test.

Later, the real Mr Duka protested to the driving test centre in Gloucester that he had been turned away and he asked for another test, said prosecutor John Armshaw.

He was booked for a test in Gloucester on January 16 this year and turned up to take it – but failed narrowly and was then arrested.

Duka, of Brook Street, pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting the mystery man to pose as him in order to take a test in his name with a view to getting a licence.

He said the man who went into the test centre posing as him was only supposed to be acting as an interpreter to help him understand the test.

Mr Armshaw told the court it was on July 29 last year at the test centre in Bath that a man who claimed to be Duka turned up, offering Duka's driving licence, national insurance card and bank card as proof of identity.

"It is the Crown's case that the individual who presented himself was attempting to impersonate Mr Duka and to sit the test in his name," Mr Armshaw said.

When Duka was arrested he told police he had employed the man to act as an interpreter for him during the theory test. He said he had met the man in Bath and paid him £220 outside the centre.

The man had then told him to wait outside and had gone into the centre with his documents, only to emerge later and tell him he could not sit the test unless he had his passport, which he did not.

Duka, who has lived in the UK for nine years, said he did not know the man had pretended to be him or attempted to sit the test in his name.

His barrister, Emily Brazenall, told the court "He does not know why he did it."

Magistrates chairman Gordon Ferris said the court had found Duka to be a "reliable witness" and found him not guilty.