The Rev Alex Brown, 61, was convicted of conducting hundreds of fake marriage ceremonies at his East Sussex church to enable illegal African immigrants gain residency in Britain.
In four years he presided over 383 marriages, at least 360 of them sham ceremonies where women, with rights to live and work in the UK, were paid up to £3,000 each to wed African men, mainly from Nigeria, at the small parish church of St Peter and St Paul.
The brides were recruited by Ukrainian national Vladymyr Buchak, 33, an illegal immigrant working in a sausage factory. The grooms were men about to be deported, many of them known to Nigerian-born solicitor and pastor Michael Adelasoye, 51, through his Ark of Hope evangelical church in nearby Hastings. He would advise them on residency once they were married.
The weddings, which entitled the grooms, often already married with families back home, to stay in the UK, were conducted by Brown usually without the knowledge of his congregation or church wardens.
Brown, Buchak and Adelasoye were convicted at Lewes crown court of conspiring to facilitate the commission of breaches of immigration laws. They were caught following an investigation by the UK Border Agency after caseworkers noticed the huge number of immigration applications from people who married at the church between 2005 and 2009.
At his peak, Brown married up to eight fake couples every Sunday. Ceremonies included couples who produced rings that did not fit, couples who could not speak the same language, and several people who would request to marry one person one week, only to marry someone completely different the next.
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