Vicar guilty of huge immigrant marriages scam

The Rev Alex Brown presided over the "massive and cynical scam" over a four-year period which involved hard-up Eastern Europeans being paid up to 3,000 to marry Africans.

The 61-year-old conducted a total of 383 marriages at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, between July 2005 and July 2009.

It represented a staggering 30-fold increase on the number of marriages conducted over the previous four years.

Following a seven-week trial at Lewes Crown Court jurors yesterday found him guilty of conspiring to facilitate the commission of breaches of immigration laws, along with co-defendants, Michael Adelasoye, 50, and Vladymyr Buchak, 33.

They were caught following an investigation by the UK Border Agency suspicious of the huge number of immigration applications involving people who had got married at the church.

Investigators found documents he had doctored, including an electoral roll plus a second, altered copy, which he had filled out to hide the dramatic increase in weddings.

Jurors were shown photocopies of the marriage register which showed 360 out of the 383 weddings during the period involved Eastern Europeans marrying African nationals.

They all seemed to live in the parish, with 90 couples registered as living in one road alone and 52 in another. In some instances there were even several brides and grooms claiming to live in the same house.

Brown had already pleaded guilty to a technical breach of marriage

rules while Buchak had admitted using a false passport.

The Ukrainian national had been living illegally in the UK since at least 2004 and recruited the Eastern Europeans into the marriages of convenience with Africans, mainly from Nigeria.

He was arrested on the same day as Brown and identity documents

belonging to some of the Eastern Europeans were found in his home in Anglesea Terrace, St Leonards-on-Sea.

He declined to give evidence, while Brown and solicitor Adelasoye both denied knowing the marriages were false.

Brown insisted he only ever married couples he was sure were getting married for the right reasons.

He said he became suspicious of one of two couples, but put the vast increase in weddings down to "word of mouth".

The Archdeacon of Lewes and Hastings, Philip Jones, said Brown had committed a "betrayal of trust" and may face disciplinary action from the Church.

Buchak was remanded in custody while Brown and Adelasoye, of St

Leonards-on-Sea, were given continued bail.