'Incredible impact' of sham marriage law

By Liam Allen
BBC News

A woman has been jailed for setting up scam marriages to help Indian men skip immigration procedures. Jaswinder Gill, 41, from Hayes, west London, is the latest in a long list of people convicted for setting up marriages of convenience.

Jaswinder Gill (back right) made up to £1m from the weddings

Immigration has been a hot topic during the election campaign and in the last few years a number of people have been convicted in connection with bogus wedding scams linked to illegal immigration.

In January 25 people who took part in a sham marriage network based in Leicester were jailed for a total of 35 years.

Last November Samuel Amoah, a Belgian national who set up two fake weddings for couples who wanted to remain in the UK, was jailed for three years.

Similar scams are a staple diet for investigative journalists from the Sunday tabloids.

But new rules on marriage for foreign nationals living in the UK were introduced on 1 February precisely to stop such bogus marriages.

The rules mean that most non-EU nationals who want to wed in the UK must apply for a Home Office "certificate of marriage approval", which costs £135, proving they have a legal right to be in the UK.

They must then register their intention to marry at one of 76 specially-designated register offices.

We have a totally different job now - all of the weddings that are coming through are legitimate Registrar Mark Rimmer Woman jailed for scam

Registrars say the drop in the number of foreign nationals giving notice to marriage is already "nothing short of remarkable" and will have "a very significant impact" on the number of bogus marriages - estimated by the Home Office as up to 15,000 a year.

Registrars' spokesman Mark Rimmer said: "In some areas, particularly in London, it's looking like an 80% decrease of which a good proportion will have been bogus marriages.

"We'll have to wait and see but it looks as though it will make an incredible difference."

Legitimacy doubts

Mr Rimmer, service director for registrations of marriages at Brent Council in north-west London, said he estimated one in five wedding applications from "couples" in his area were bogus before the new legislation came in.

The new rules were introduced to cut sham marriages

He said: "We had six or seven weddings a day and, with one or two a day, we would have doubts about their legitimacy.

"We would report these but it was difficult because sourcing staff from immigration was not always possible.

"We have a totally different job now - all of the weddings that are coming through are legitimate."

'Rights impeded'

But the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) argues that, while scam marriages should be stopped, the new legislation is "discriminatory".

The rights of British nationals who wish to marry asylum seekers are being impeded Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants Q&A: Foreign marriage laws

Spokeswoman Rhian Benyon said: "We've heard from a number of people, who would like to marry partners, in genuine relationships but whose partners are asylum seekers whose cases haven't been processed.

"We've heard from a number of people between a rock and a hard place, in terms of getting married."

The rights of British nationals, who wished to marry asylum seekers, were also being impeded, she added.

The JCWI says one of the new rules is both "particularly discriminatory" and a "loophole around the rules".

'Discriminatory clause'

Home Office guidance states that those who plan to get married at an Anglican church do not require a certificate of approval.

She said: "Church of England marriages are exempt from the rules.

"If anyone who goes along to their local Church of England parish minister, and if they live in that parish, then, as we understand it, the minister cannot refuse to marry them.

"If you're Muslim or a Hindu, this is not an ideal situation and it's arguably discriminatory."

The JCWI would wait until it found "the ideal test case" before launching a legal challenge on the grounds that the rules breached human rights laws, Ms Beynon added.

'Sensitive period'

A spokeswoman for the Church of England said the Anglican clause was not a loophole that could be exploited.

Its lawyers were looking into the matter, she added.

A Home Office spokeswoman said she could not comment on how the new rules were being implemented because immigration was such a key issue in the "sensitive" pre-election period.

But they had been introduced to "avoid disruption of genuine marriages while providing firm controls to prevent abuse", she said.