Reporting Fruad Marriage

elaine373

What religion is he? I ask this because some religions are allowed more than one wife.

Voyager2002

OK, some reality.

Getting married is a fairly complicated legal process, and the man's existing marriage would come to light. Furthermore, since he is a foreigner it would be necessary to obtain special permission, and under the circumstances you outline I doubt very much whether that permission would be granted. So this wedding that you fear is just not going to happen, at least not in Britain.

margaretclare

elaine373 wrote:

What religion is he? I ask this because some religions are allowed more than one wife.

Not in this country they're not.

Margaret Clare

india

Depending what country he is from they will have to get a marriage approval certificate from the home office to say they can get married. Currently there is a back log and there taking a few months. They may not of thought of this as it's recently come in.

margaretclare

Hi all

I actually met my present DH via the internet. We'd never have met by any other means - different walks of life, different life histories, when he was in the south I was in the north and vice versa. Anyway, we were both mature people, both 62, and both in England. Different cup of tea entirely between foreign countries!!!

There are certain basic precautions to take before meeting. Tell someone where you're going and ask them to phone you if they don't hear from you in a certain time. If they still don't hear from you, they should then raise the alarm.

Always meet in a public place with other people around - we met at Trowell Services on the M1. We had lunch together in a public restaurant. Even so, I took a huge risk going into a booked Travelodge room with him to spend the night - worst-case scenario, I might not have come out of there alive.

I took him to meet my daughter the following morning - she lived not too far away. We had arranged, although we'd emailed back and forth, we'd phoned etc, that if we didn't 'hit it off' on meeting then we would part with no hard feelings.

That was 1997, 3 weeks after that meeting he drove 170 miles south to move in with me. In 1999 he was divorced. When we decided to get married, we had to go to the register office and 'register our intention to marry', paying £30 each. We were told that the regulations had tightened up that year, 2001, and the lady registrar interrogated us, oh so politely, but if the Gestapo had ever been so polite yet so insistent as that lady, they needn't have said 've haf vays of making you talk!' She pounced on DH because he got my age wrong. She also queried where we were going to get married: 'it's not on this list that I have here'. Eventually we sorted that one out - what she had down as North Street Wesleyan Chapel was what we called Rochford Methodist Church. She even wanted to know who was the minister, had we seen the minister about the wedding?

Afterwards she apologised to us but said that all this was designed to ensure that we actually knew each other, hadn't just met for the purposes of a bogus marriage to stay in the UK! I think she was just trying it out - it was obvious from our documents that we're a native English couple, not exactly in the first flush of youth etc.

Our wedding was 3 weeks later, January 2002. Since then I've heard of all kinds of scams, forced marriages, fraudulent marriages of the kind you suspect, and I wonder - given that Gestapo-style registrar - how it's possible?

We had an attempted break-in at our church, and it's not the kind of church that has silver candlesticks or anything of value at all. The Police told us that the most valuable item kept on church premises (fortunately in a heavy old-fashioned solid iron safe) is the book of unused marriage certificates!

I would urge your friend - be very, very careful. It's like youngsters with chat rooms who went to meet what they thought was someone their own age who turned out to be a middle-aged paedophile. People can tell you anything in a chat-room or even on sites like this.

And most important of all, never never never promise to marry someone you've never met!! You can't 'get married next week' anyway - you have to go through that procedure at the registrar's that I outlined above. The proposed marriage can't take place for 15 working days after you see the registrar, both of you - it's like having banns read on 3 successive Sundays, same idea.

Be really, really careful!

Margaret Clare

seven-day-weekend

elaine373 wrote:

What religion is he? I ask this because some religions are allowed more than one wife.

Not legally, in the UK.

wigginsmum

margaretclare wrote:

Always meet in a public place with other people around - we met at Trowell Services on the M1. We had lunch together in a public restaurant. Even so, I took a huge risk going into a booked Travelodge room with him to spend the night - worst-case scenario, I might not have come out of there alive.

Do as I say, not as I do, right? It's hardly good advice to advise on personal safety if you did the exact opposite and spent the night in a room with someone you didn't really know.

melancholly

can you 'accidentally' let her parents find out? the power of a talking to from her mum might be a way to start before bringing the authorities in..... good luck

socmwils23

Ok as an immigration officer ill try and answer your post. Some details would help though.

Nationality?
Where would they live? Uk or elsewhere?
How long together?

What would happen is he would need to apply for a marriage visa. Thsi would be a change from his student visa. To obtain this he would have to undergo a fairly thorough interview to prove the relationship is real. It would go into all their history together and basically come down to if the interviewer on the day believed them.

You could register your concerns by phoning lunar house in croydon. I only have internal numbers that the public arent allowed access too but if you use directory enquiries they will give you the public number.

At a rough guess id say he is Nigerian or Ghanaian. There is a high instance of marriage fraud in these countries as a lot of their residents are desperate to get to or stay in the UK. Same goes for places in the middle east. The number one country for this is the phillipines.

My advice is to talk to your friend. If you have real suspicions she is the one you need to get through to. The IS can only do so much and if it appears to be genuine our hands are tied. Tell her to give it time before jumping in. If he is trying to rush things ask her why. One important fact would be if his visa for studying is due to expire. If it is and he is rushing to get married alarm bells would go off in my head.

Best of luck to you and if you need any more questions answered fire away.

margaretclare

wigginsmum wrote:

Do as I say, not as I do, right? It's hardly good advice to advise on personal safety if you did the exact opposite and spent the night in a room with someone you didn't really know.

I said that I took certain precautions. We met in public, we had lunch in public, several people knew where I was, there was a phone in the room, if I hadn't answered the phone when someone rang, the people who knew I was there would have alerted reception desk in the Travelodge.

It's hardly the same scenario as the one the OP is describing, her friend wanting to marry someone she hasn't even seen. Meet in public, tell people where you'll be - that's what I was saying.

Margaret Clare