Vicar Charged Over 'Sham Marriages For Illegal Migrants Plot'

London Times ^ | July 01st, 2009

[Steelfish]

July 2, 2009

Vicar charged over 'sham marriages for illegal migrants plot'

Father Alex Brown had worked in the parish in Sussex for almost 20 years

Fran Yeoman

A 60-year-old vicar was charged yesterday with involvement in an alleged criminal conspiracy to organise “sham marriages” for illegal immigrants.

The Rev Alex Brown was one of four people arrested after a series of dawn raids in the Hastings area of East Sussex on Tuesday, which came after an 18-month investigation by Sussex Police and the UK Border Agency’s immigration crime team.

Police searched the offices of St Peter and St Paul Church, St Leonards, and arrested Mr Brown, who has worked in the parish for almost 20 years. He was charged with conspiring to facilitate unlawful entry and solemnising a marriage according to the rites of the Church of England without banns of matrimony being duly published.

[VR-21]

I’m undecided as to whether the best weapon the enemies of our civilization has is our craveness or our corruption.

[TWohlford]

Unlike most (if not all) of the USA, people who have church weddings in the UK have it as a separate thing from their civil wedding.

In other words, you get married in the eyes of the government, then go down to the church and get married in the eyes of the church.

So, I can only conclude that this guy was being matchmaker for such “marriages”, NOT that he was making them legal.

Here in the USA, you can go to a Craigslist and find someone who will marry for citizenship — no clergy required.

[JSDude1]

Doesn’t “Marriage” mean anything this man anymore; it seems to me that he is breaking his vow to God by using “marriage” in such a petty way (as well as sinning-no matter the intentions).

[glock rocks]

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45 posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:41:31 PM by Jim Robinson (Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jimrobfr)

[Winniesboy]

Sorry, that’s not so. Church of England clergymen (and the ministers of many other denominations) are licensed to act as registrars: so that no further civil ceremony is required in addition to the religious one. It’s this double role which this man seems to have exploited. The circumstances in which people have a separate civil ceremony are usually that the Church refuses to marry them (eg if they’re divorced), but does give them a church blessing (which isn’t a marriage).