Shrewsbury sham marriage groom is jailed
A man who planned to take part in a sham marriage in Shrewsbury as part of a desperate attempt to stay in the UK has been jailed.
A suspicious registrar raised the alarm when Avtar Singh, 38, and his bride registered notice of intention to marry at Shrewsbury Register office on February 21, 2013 – and couldn't communicate without the help of an iPhone translation app.
A probe uncovered a string of sham services that took place at register offices in Shrewsbury, Manchester and in Scotland between August 2012 and September 2013.
Singh who was living in Dace Road, Heath Town, Wolverhampton, married a woman who was not part of the case in another sham marriage that took place at Shrewsbury Register Office in a ceremony described as a 'choreographed performance' by the registrar.
Singh was already married, but needed an EU bride to secure his stay in the country.
He was among a number of illegal over-stayers provided with Czech brides for a few thousand pounds by an international 'delivery service'.
The court heard fellow defendant Elohor Eruotor, aged 34, of Probert Road, Oxley, 'married' Angela Balogova, aged 32 from Manchester, at Gretna Green, the village in Scotland famous for runaway weddings.
In reality his 32-year-old 'bride' was one of four Eastern Europeans sourcing women from the Czech Republic who were prepared to be paid to marry men they had never met from the Asian sub continent who were desperate to stay in the UK.
They were arrested in a string of raids in March last year. Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to facilitate a breach of immigration law and were each jailed for 12 months.
Singh, Eruotor and the other grooms aimed to get permission to stay, work and claim benefits in this country by abusing rules that allow immigrants to remain in the UK when married to an EU national living here.
