Alan Mcilwraith (born 3 March 1978) is a Scottish former call centre worker from Glasgow who was exposed as a military impostor by a tabloid newspaper after he passed himself off as a much-decorated British Army officer. He convinced a number of charities and media outlets that he was "Captain Sir Alan Mcilwraith,

KBE KBE may refer to: * Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, post-nominal letters * Knowledge-based engineering Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain o ...

, DSO, MC". The

National Children's Home Action for Children (formerly National Children's Home) is a UK children's charity created to help vulnerable children & young people and their families in the UK. The charity has 7,000 staff and volunteers who operate over 475 services in the ...

charity invited him to the Women of Influence Awards at the Barony Halls. Celebrity magazine ''No1'' carried a picture of him which was captioned "Lady Shona cLaughlanand Sir Alan McIlwraith", showing him wearing the dress uniform of the Parachute Regiment with medals.

Mcilwraith's entry in Wikipedia

An article about Alan Mcilwraith was created on Wikipedia on 5 October 2005: Mcilwraith also uploaded to Wikipedia a photograph of himself wearing military uniform and medals (see above). The article was created from an IP address registered to

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

, but Mcilwraith also apparently edited the article under the Wikipedia username MilitaryPro. On 10 October 2005 the article was tagged as needing citations for verification, and on 20 October 2005 the article was tagged for

deletion Deletion or delete may refer to: Computing * File deletion, a way of removing a file from a computer's file system * Code cleanup, a way of removing unnecessary variables, data structures, cookies, and temporary files in a programming language * ...

due to concerns about its reliability. The article was deleted three times and protected from recreation on 17 February 2006. When news of the hoax broke in April 2006 the article was revived, stating that the previous versions had been written by Mcilwraith himself. When the article was created, Mcilwraith was described as a CBE, but by December 2005 he had purportedly been elevated to the rank of

. On 4 October 2005, MilitaryPro added the name of Alan Mcilwraith to the List of honorary British Knights in Wikipedia.

Exposure

Mcilwraith's double life was exposed by the Scottish tabloid newspaper the '' Daily Record'' in an article on 11 April 2006 which described him as "Sir Walter Mitty". The newspaper contacted the British Army and

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

during its investigation into Mcilwraith's status, but both denied knowledge of him. An Army spokesperson was quoted by the newspaper as saying, "I can confirm he is a fraud. He has never been an officer, soldier or Army cadet. May I suggest you try the space cadet organisation." Mcilwraith later said that "the lie had just gone too deep, it's like a weed that invades your life. Once it's taken root, there's nothing you can do about it."

Mcilwraith the magician

In December 2007, the ''Sunday Mail'' reported that Mcilwraith had reinvented himself as a

magician Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...

. When confronted by the ''Sunday Mail'', he said: "I've been very stupid. It was all lies and for that I apologise. I should have stopped lying after I got caught last time but I just really wanted to be taken seriously as a magician. I won't ever do this again.""War Hero Imposter Tries A New Trick As Magician"
''The Sunday Mail''.

Mcilwraith the property tycoon

In June 2009, Mcilwraith received fresh coverage in the ''Daily Record'', which reported that he had been passing himself off as a millionaire property tycoon and charity worker to students at Strathclyde University. The paper also claimed that Mcilwraith had asked some students for disclosure documents and taken their National Insurance numbers and other details after duping them into filling in recruitment forms. When a journalist from the ''Record'' met Mcilwraith at Glasgow Central Station, he was wearing "striking blue"

contact lens Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic ...

es. Mcilwraith claimed he was working for an agency that housed asylum seekers, denied passing himself off as a student and said that the stories of his latest tall tales had come from students getting confused after too many drinks. He stated: "I have been trying to recruit people for the company I work for but I have not been trying to do anything other than help. It's true I asked one girl about getting a disclosure but I was genuinely trying to help her along too."

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