Vicars ‘presided over hundreds of sham marriages for immigrants’
Two Church of England vicars conducted “hundreds” of sham marriages to enable illegal immigrants to stay in Britain, a court was told yesterday.
Rev Elwon John, 44, and Rev Brian Shipsides, 55, performed the ceremonies at All Saints Church in Forest Gate, east London, it is alleged.
The weddings, mainly between Nigerian and European Union nationals, are alleged to have been arranged by Amdudalat Ladipo, 31.
Once married, there was a “strikingly high proportion” who then made applications to the Home Office for the right to remain in the country, jurors were told. In some cases EU nationals were flown into Britain for weddings before being flown straight out again, the prosecution told Inner London Crown Court.
It was alleged that “a very large number” of ceremonies had been conducted over a two and a half year period.
The three accused were arrested after officers from the Metropolitan Police and UK Border Agency became suspicious.
David Walbank, prosecuting, said: “This case involves a massive and systematic immigration fraud.
“At the centre of this fraud is one particular parish church in the east of London, All Saints Church in Forest Gate.
“The Crown’s case is that there took place in that church over a two and a half year period a very large number indeed of sham marriages entered into for the purpose of immigration.
“Most of the so-called couples participating in these marriage ceremonies were not actually couples at all.
“They were married in that church not because they wished to spend their lives together and wanted the blessing of the church, most of the persons married there for a very different reason.
“Their ultimate purpose was to obtain enhanced rights to enter and live in the United Kingdom.”
Mr Walbank told jurors that the majority of the marriages were between Nigerians and nationals from the European Economic Area, mainly from Portugal and Holland.
He told the court: “The fraud, the Crown suggest, wasn’t confined to one or two, or even a couple of dozen of ceremonies. We are concerned in this case with hundreds of sham marriages.
“On some occasions EEA nationals were flown into the UK specially for marriages to take place and then flown back out again.”
When police visited the church in July 2010, after being told that a number of sham weddings were due to take place that day, they met Miss Ladipo.
She said she was there because a friend was getting married, the court was told. When asked for her friend’s name, she “became agitated” and was later seen trying to get rid of a brown envelope under a bush in the church grounds. The envelope was found to contain a number of identity documents.
Mr Walbank told jurors: “If the sham marriages hadn’t been stopped they would have continued at a rate of knots as there were many more booked at the church that would have taken place.”
Jurors were told that Miss Ladipo had married a Dutch national in February 2010.
“Her reason for going through with the marriage, we suggest, is entirely consistent with the motive of others at All Saints Church during the indictment period, to stay in the country,” said Mr Walbank.
Shipsides, of Forest Gate, has admitted conspiring to facilitate unlawful immigration. Miss Ladipo, of Dagenham, and Mr John, of Barking, both in east London, deny the same charge.
Miss Ladipo also denies possessing false identity documents.
The trial continues.
Source: The Telegraph
Related articles
- Sham marriage vicar faces jail after 31 fake weddings (mirror.co.uk)
- Rev Canon Dr John Magumba didn’t even bother to hold sham weddings for fake marriages (dailymail.co.uk)
- Couple who flew in EU brides to marry men who faced deportation handed six years in jail (dailymail.co.uk)
- Uk News: Vicar Jailed for Carrying Out Sham Marriages (madnewsuk.com)
‘Predictive policing’ could come to UK
A very interesting story in relation to a pioneering technique dubbed ‘predictive policing’ was reported in The Independent today.
“The technique to predict crime before it happens could be imported from the United States to this country. Pilots of the scheme – under which officers are dispatched to crime hotspots identified by computer – have had early success in California.”
The article is a little short on detail and appears to over simplify what can be a complex process, but it appears that the technique that is being described is akin to ‘predictive analytics’ – a method that has been employed in UK intelligence-led policing for many years now. Using a combination of computers and intelligence analysts that are experienced in human behavioural assessment to make predictions based on collected data.
Since the introduction of the National Intelligence Model (NIM) and intelligence-led policing in the year 2000, dedicated intelligence units comprising intelligence analysts and intelligence officers have been the standard throughout all UK police forces.
Intelligence-led policing methods consisting of crime pattern and incident analysis; hot-spot analysis, intelligence reports and a host of other data provided by patrol officers, as well as operational field intelligence officers and their confidential informants, are all used by intelligence analysts to predict where future crime may well occur and also give indications as to the perpetrator.
Although much success has been achieved via intelligence-led policing it is not an exact science and is therefore not fool-proof. The system is severely tested when there is insufficient manpower. Pouring resources into a crime hotspot can solve the problem in the identified area but often can shift the problem to another area. Having sufficient human resources to deal with the displacement of criminal behaviour seems to be the an important factor.
It would seem that this ‘predictive policing’ has reduced the whole process to a computer algorithm and we all wait with great anticipation to measure its effect.
Related articles
- Memphis Cops Use Predictive Analytics to Fight Crime (pcworld.com)
- What are the alternatives to stop and search? (bbc.co.uk)
Britain facing boom in dishonesty
New study reveals dramatic decline in private integrity; Public trust in politicians and business leaders hits fresh low.
The British people are becoming less honest and their trust in government and business leaders has fallen to a new low amid fears that the nation is heading for an “integrity crisis”.
Lying, having an affair, driving while drunk, having underage sex and buying stolen goods are all more acceptable than they were a decade ago. But people are less tolerant of benefits fraud.
The portrait of a nation increasingly relaxed about “low-level dishonesty” emerges in a major study seen by The Independent. Carried out by the University of Essex, which will today launch Britain’s first Centre for the Study of Integrity, it suggests that the “integrity problem” is likely to get worse because young people are more tolerant of dishonest behaviour than the older generation. The new centre will look at issues arising from recent scandals such as phone hacking, MPs’ expenses and the banking crisis.
A separate “trust barometer”, published by the PR company Edelman, shows that two out of three people do not trust politicians to tell the truth. Trust levels in MPs from all parties slumped by 36 points to 4 per cent after last summer’s riots. People also lost confidence in the young and the police.
Only 29 per cent of people believe the Government is doing the right thing, while 38 per cent trust businesses and a surprisingly low 42 per cent trust non-governmental organisations. “There is a chasm between the public’s expectations of government and what they think is actually being delivered,” said Ed Williams, boss of Edelman. “The vast majority [68 per cent] think the country is on the wrong track.”
The Essex University study found that in 2000, 70 per cent of people believed an extramarital affair could never be justified; today, the proportion is about 50 per cent. The proportion of people who say picking up money found in the street is never justified fell from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. Lying and breaking the speed limit have also become an accepted part of life. Fabricating a job application and having an affair are less acceptable, but many people do not rule them out.
According to the Essex study, women have slightly more integrity than men. There appears to be little variation in honesty according to social class, education or income. But there is a significant age factor: younger people are far more likely to tolerate dishonesty. Only 33 per cent of under-25s thinks lying on a job application is never justified, compared with 41 per cent of middle-aged people and 55 per cent of those over 65.
The report’s author, Professor Paul Whiteley, who will direct the new centre, believes there might be a “life cycle” effect in which people become more honest as they age. However, he points out that other research suggests people learn honesty or dishonesty in their formative years and this will not change very much as they get older.
“There are reasons to be pessimistic about this, since people tend to acquire their basic political beliefs in adolescence and these do not change very much as they grow older,” the report says. “If integrity is anything like political values, then it is likely to decline in future as the norms which sanction such behaviour weaken further. This will be more likely if new cohorts of young people learn to be even more dishonest than at present.”
Comparing the latest findings with similar research in 2000, Professor Whiteley says: “It is apparent that large changes have occurred in sexual mores, attitudes to keeping money found in the street, and to smoking cannabis. These activities are much more sanctioned than they were 11 years ago.”
There have been smaller but significant changes in attitudes towards failing to report damage to a parked car, buying stolen goods and drink-driving, which earn less disapproval than they did in 2000. The only transgression of which people are less tolerant is cheating on benefit claims. The proportion condemning the practice has risen from 78 per cent to 85 per cent. “This may reflect a growing hostility to welfare fraud at a time of economic austerity in comparison with the years of relative prosperity of the late 1990s,” says Professor Whiteley. “It appears Britons are growing more and more tolerant of low-level dishonesty and less inclined to sanction activities which would have been heavily frowned on in the past.”
There could be big implications for politics. Professor Whiteley, who has devised an “integrity test”, see panel, said integrity levels mattered because there was a link between them and a sense of civic duty. If integrity continues to decline, he thinks it will be difficult to mobilise volunteers to support David Cameron’s Big Society project.
“If social capital is low, and people are suspicious and don’t work together, those communities have worse health, worse educational performance, they are less happy and they are less economically developed and entrepreneurial,” Professor Whiteley said. “It really does have a profound effect.”
The same trend could also deter people from voting, as a sense of civic duty is an important factor in explaining why people take part in elections.
“Individuals with a strong sense of integrity also feel they would be neglecting their duty if they did not vote,” says the Essex study.
Source: The Independent
Related articles
- Simon Blackburn: The important thing about dishonesty is that we should try to be honest about it (independent.co.uk)
- Words in the News: Dishonesty (englishblog.com)
- Dealing With Dishonesty (pipeline.corante.com)
Fifth new lead in “nude in the nettles” case
A FIFTH family has contacted detectives trying to solve one of North Yorkshire’s most famous mysteries.
Police revealed the new lead today, as they prepare to begin digging up the woman’s remains in a new attempt to finally identify her.
Officers have been granted permission to exhume the woman’s body at Malton Cemetery in order to extract DNA from her teeth and femur, and the exhumation was due to begin at midnight last night.
The “nude in the nettles” has baffled police since a woman’s corpse was found in August 1981, between Scawton and Rievaulx near Sutton Bank. Detectives believe the body had been there for two years, but were unable to identify it, despite a huge investigation that included British policing’s first ever wax facial reconstruction.
The Press revealed last year that police were reopening the investigation, 30 years after the body was found. Since then, four families had contacted detectives saying they believed the woman could be a relative, and a fifth came forward earlier today.
Speaking at the cemetery this afternoon, Detective Superintendent Lewis Raw said: “Despite all the work done, we have never been able to bring this case to a closure. Somewhere out there, there is a family mising a loved one. It is the force’s primary aim to bring that family some closure after all this time.”
He said significant advances in DNA technology had given the force fresh hope. The extracted sample will be compared to those of the five families that have come forward, and also checked against the national DNA database. It will take four weeks for results to emerge.
Although the case is officially recorded as an “unexplained incident”, officers have openly said they believe the woman was murdered.
Det Supt Raw said: “This is a naked woman who was found in a nettle bush. There were no pieces of clothing, jewellery or identifying features. I think there must have been some suspicious circumstances.”
Police officers, a Home Office pathologist, a forensic archaeologist and crime scene investigators will be involved in the ceremony tonight. A barrier and forensic tent have been erected and a graveside blessing will be carried out by Force Chaplain, Reverend Simon Rudkin. Protective covers have been placed over other nearby gravestones.
The work, which required permission from Her Majesty’s Coroner, Michael Oakley, will be carried out manually and take about seven hours, allowing forensic work to begin tomorrow morning.
The body is expected to be reinterred on Wednesday morning, allowing the cemetery to reopen in the afternoon. A wreath will be placed at the grave by officers from North Yorkshire Police.
The Sutton Bank mystery began on August 28, 1981, when police received an early-morning anonymous call, giving the precise location of the body. The caller said he could not give his name for security reasons and became an immediate suspect, but was never traced.
Det Supt Law last night appealed again for that caller to contact police, if he is still alive.
A yoghurt top beneath the body suggested it had been there for about two years and police said its the position suggested someone was in a hurry to dump the woman.
She is thought to have been about 5ft 2in tall and aged 35 to 40. Investigations showed she was a mother who had two or possible three children. She was of slender build and wore her dark brown hair in a pageboy style. Her toenails were painted a pale pink and she would have worn a size four shoe. Staining on her teeth suggested she was a heavy smoker who drank heavily and did not pay much attention to herself.
Source: Jennifer Bell The York Press
Bigamist wins ‘family life’ human rights case
A foreign drug-dealing bigamist has won the right to stay in Britain because of his human right to “family life”.
Home Office lawyers hoped the deportation of foreign criminal Taoufik Didi would be an open-and-shut case.
He had been sentenced to three years in prison for selling cocaine to undercover police officers, and so exceeded the criteria for “automatic deportation” under the law.
However, the Moroccan launched a human rights appeal, telling immigration judges he had been in a loving relationship with a British woman, Marina Gregory, for 10 years. He now intended to wed her and start a family.
The judges believed the 47-year-old criminal and, to the disappointment of Home Office officials, granted his appeal under the Human Rights Act – ruling that his ”right to private and family life” entitled him to stay on in Britain.
Yet all was not as it seemed.
The judges reached their decision despite two surprising admissions made by Didi in court. He told them he already had a wife, who he had married in 1989, and was awaiting a divorce which would free him to remarry.
Furthermore, he admitted that he had initially kept his first wife’s existence a secret from Miss Gregory – although he claimed that she had now forgiven his deception.
Now The Sunday Telegraph has established that Didi did not tell the whole truth in the immigration hearing – and that his family life is even more convoluted than the version the judges heard.
In fact, Didi has two “wives”. He committed bigamy by “marrying” Miss Gregory three years ago in an open-air ceremony in Cyprus, while legally wed to his first wife.
The case provides further evidence of how human rights are being “gold-plated” by the courts in immigration cases, and raises questions over how rigorous the courts and Home Office are in checking the truth of migrants’ accounts.
Didi came to Britain in 1986 when he was aged 22. Three years later, on May 12, 1989, he married Karen Ann Ridley at the register office in Redbridge, north-east London.
They remain married today; the Principal Registry of the Family Division confirmed the union had not been dissolved in decree absolute.
Didi was granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain on the basis of that marriage.
He told the court he began a relationship with Miss Gregory, a hairdresser from north London, in 2001 and they moved in together in 2006.
With the help of his friend Denise Courtnell, 68, Didi set up and managed a nightspot, Bar Lush, in Chingford, north-east London, but it was here that he began dealing drugs in 2008.
He was arrested in 2009 after selling £160 “wraps” of cocaine to undercover police officers on four occasions, and was jailed for three years at Snaresbrook Crown Court in March 2010.
The criminal, who has previous convictions for false accounting, criminal damage and perverting the course of justice, served half the sentence and was freed last October.
When the Home Office began deportation proceedings he launched a first appeal, and lost.
Undeterred, Didi brought a second appeal to the Upper Tribunal and argued he had a human right to remain in Britain because he was in a relationship with Miss Gregory.
“The appellant … says that they became engaged on March 27, 2007, and had a religious blessing ceremony on March 30, 2008, through an imam,” said Upper Tribunal Judge Peter King.
“It became evident to the tribunal that the appellant had practised ongoing deceit in respect of Ms Gregory that he had never told her that he had been previously married. Indeed, he did not seem to be divorced either.
“He had implied to Ms Gregory that he was free to marry her, which then and still now he is not.”
Judge King added: “The appellant is now in the process of filing a divorce petition, he having been separated from his legal wife for over 15 years.”
However, The Sunday Telegraph has established Didi and Miss Gregory had a civil marriage ceremony at the Palm Beach Hotel in Larnaca, Cyprus, on May 18, 2008.
The ceremony, carried out by an official from the town hall in Aradippou Municipality, was attended by more than 100 guests including Miss Gregory’s mother and sisters, and friends from London.
The couple accepted each other as their “lawful spouse” and exchanged rings. In an unusual choice of music, they cut the cake to the sounds of the 1980s pop song Somebody Else’s Guy by Jocelyn Brown.
In Didi’s appeal last October, Miss Gregory said she was “shocked and upset” when she belatedly found out about his 1989 marriage, but had since forgiven him. She neglected to mention the 2008 Cyprus “wedding”.
Bigamy is a crime in the UK. Under Cypriot law, making a false statement in a civil marriage carries a prison term.
The couple’s evidence to the immigration court also raises the question of whether they committed perjury, which carries a seven-year maximum sentence.
Didi at first tried to claim the 2008 ceremony was “just a blessing” until he was confronted with the evidence.
“I have been a silly boy. I just assumed that I was divorced,” Didi said.
“I spoke to someone who said Karen had got divorced. I just assumed I got divorced.
“I haven’t slept since I found out I wasn’t divorced. I swear to God I didn’t know until afterwards. I had to lie in court. I knew I was stuck.”
He added: “Everyone’s using Article 8. I’m not the only one.
“I made a mistake and paid my dues. I didn’t go robbing people or raping people.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We will consider any new evidence of abuse and where we can prove an individual has obtained leave to remain in the UK fraudulently we will seek to revoke it and remove them from the country.”
Source: The Telegraph
Knife crime rises fast as muggers target gadgets
A surge in the number of murders and knifepoint muggings overshadowed yesterday’s release of crime figures that showed the number of offences is falling.
The total number of offences reported to police fell by 4 per cent to 4.1 million in the year to the end of September – but violent attacks increased. More than 15,300 robberies with knives were recorded – a rise of 10 per cent – as offenders targeted smartphones, iPods and handbags.
Half of the country’s muggings took place in London, which suffered a 13 per cent rise over the year. The number of robberies in the West Midlands also increased by 10 per cent.
But levels of gun crime dropped by 13 per cent, along with falls in burglary and car theft.
Separate figures revealed a 4.6 per cent rise in the number of killings – from 608 to 636 – in England and Wales in the year to March 2011, a figure that includes the 12 victims of the Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird. Sixty of those killed were shot (including two by crossbow) and 232 by a sharp instrument.
The Home Office also disclosed that 29 murderers and six people convicted of manslaughter went on to kill again between 2000-01 and 2010-11.
The rise in recorded violent crime reflected the findings of the British Crime Survey, which is based on interviews with the public. It reported a rise of 11 per cent in “personal crime”, which includes attacks and muggings, from 3.5 million to 3.9 million incidents in the year to September 2011.
The survey found “no statistically significant change” in the estimated overall crime rate, which remained at about 9.7 million incidents. Nick Herbert, the Policing minister, said the figures showed a “mixed picture” without evidence of a shift in the long-term trends.
But he added: “There are areas of concern and, as we have consistently said, crime remains too high.”
But Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, said: “These figures are deeply worrying and show this is the wrong time to cut 16,000 police officers.”
15,300
Robberies last year involved knives, as items like iPods and handbags were targeted.
Source: The Independent
Related articles
- Hugger mugger: Rise in number of people appearing friendly but actually stealing from their targets (dailymail.co.uk)
- One in five bag thefts now occur on public transport (crimebloguk.com)
- Surge in ‘hugger muggers’ robbing revellers in Manchester city centre (menmedia.co.uk)
- Knifepoint robberies rise as thieves target phones (telegraph.co.uk)
