British vicar conducted 360 sham marriages

LONDON, (Reuters Life!) – A vicar was found guilty  yesterday of conducting hundreds of sham marriages between  African nationals and cash-strapped eastern Europeans to allow  illegal immigrants to gain residency in Britain.   Rev Alex Brown, 61, presided over 360 fake ceremonies over  four years, including several cases in which participants  cancelled one wedding only to marry someone else a month or two  later, and another in which a person was registered to marry two  people on the same day.

Of the hundreds of people Brown married, 90 couples were  registered as living in one road in the parish and in some cases  several brides and grooms claimed to live in the same house, the  Press Association reported.

Brown’s co-defendant Vladymyr Buchak, 33, was also found  guilty of conspiring to breach immigration laws by paying  eastern Europeans up to 3,000 pounds ($4,700) to marry Africans,  mainly from Nigeria, to allow them to obtain the documents they  needed to live and work in Britain.

The court heard Buchak, a Ukrainian national who had himself  been living illegally in Britain since at least 2004, was  responsible for “cajoling and persuading” the eastern Europeans  into the marriages of convenience, preying on migrant workers in  the area who were desperate to earn money.

Although Buchak was seen as the main organiser of the  operation, prosecutor David Walbank said there was no doubt  Brown must have been fully aware that the majority of the  weddings he was conducting at the church were shams.

Giving evidence during the seven-week trial, Brown insisted  he only ever married couples he was sure were getting married  for the right reasons and exceptions would only be made if the  bride-to-be was imminently expected to give birth.

But he admitted he occasionally forgot to check the  passports of foreign nationals wanting to get married to make  sure they had indefinite leave to remain in Britain.

He said he became suspicious of one or two couples, but only  because of vast differences in age between the bride and groom.