A Church of England vicar was jailed for four years today for his part in Britain’s biggest sham marriage fraud to help hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the country.
The Reverend Alex Brown (61), abused his position to marry hundreds of African men to Eastern European women at his small parish church.
Over a four-year period, the “massive and cynical scam” involved women being paid up to £3,000 to wed to help illegal immigrants gain permanent residency in Britain.
The African men had usually arrived lawfully in the UK but had exhausted the appeals process in applying to stay permanently. Files recovered as part of the inquiry showed that, in some cases, they were already married and had children in their homeland.
Brown presided over 383 marriages at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, between July 2005 and July 2009, a 30-fold rise in marriages held over the previous four years.
He was sentenced to four years in jail after being found guilty at Lewes Crown Court in July of conspiring to facilitate the commission of breaches of immigration laws, alongside solicitor Michael Adelasoye (50), and “recruiter” Vladymyr Buchak (33).
The gang were caught following an investigation by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) after caseworkers noticed a surge in immigration applications involving people who had married at the church. Detectives said the investigation was “unprecedented”, describing the three men as “happy to exploit and take advantage of other people’s desperation for their own ends”.
Judge Richard Hayward also handed Brown a five-month sentence after he pleaded guilty to solemnising a marriage according to the rites of the Church of England without banns being properly read. The two sentences will run concurrently.
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 the UK.
He said he became suspicious of one or two couples, but this was only because of vast differences in age between the bride and groom and put the vast increase in weddings down to “word of mouth”.
Brown’s motive for conducting the marriages remains unclear. He denied being manipulated or controlled by anybody or being in it for financial gain.
Cash found at his home was said to have been set aside for his pension. Other sums found correlated with the fees set by the church to conduct weddings.
The publication of banns involves a vicar reading out the names and addresses of the people to be married at three separate Sunday services within three months before the wedding.
As Brown was keen not to alert his congregation to unfamiliar-sounding names, for a large part of the period in question the banns procedure was not complied with, the trial heard.
On top of that, the sham marriages were carried out outside normal church hours, very rarely on a Saturday, and did not involve those who normally took part in genuine marriages, such as the regular organist.
PA