'She's big, smokes and likes chicken burgers': The only things sham marriage husband could tell police about his bride-to-be
*MKILETEWA HAPA NA FLORA LYIMO DESIGNER*
It was not the most romantic description of the blushing bride-to-be, whom her fiancé said simply was ‘big, black and liked smoking and chicken burgers’.
But nor was it the most romantic of unions.
And it was the gaps in Mojeed Bello’s knowledge about the woman he planned to marry which exposed their arrangement as a sham.
Jailed: Carina Merselina, pichani was offered £3,000 to marry Nigerian illegal immigrant Mojeed Bello,top phot. MBUTA NANGA!!
The 31-year-old illegal Nigerian immigrant offered Carina Merselina £3,000 to take his hand for the sole purpose of allowing him to stay in the UK.
Suspicions: The Rev Robert Simpson, the vicar at St James, Gloucester, realised something was wrong;
However the pair’s obvious lack of intimacy raised the suspicions of the vicar who was lined up to conduct the service.
The Rev Robert Simpson passed on his concerns to police after he visited the pair at home and observed their distinct lack of ‘closeness’.
He had earlier welcomed them at his church to discuss plans for the big day and seen little evidence of any mutual affection.
Prosecutor Martin Steen said the vicar ‘noticed then that there didn’t appear to be anything of a real relationship’ between the pair.
Mr Simpson, vicar of St James Church in Gloucester, then decided to visit the couple at the address they had given him, in Barton Street in the centre of Gloucester.
But Mr Steen said: ‘When he got to the flat he found it had all the appearances of student digs.
'He saw no evidence that it was the couple’s home, as claimed.
'His visit did nothing to reassure him that this was a genuine marriage.’
The couple were arrested when they went to the diocesan registrar’s office on February 24 to get the marriage licence.
Fake romance: Carina Merselina's husband-to-be barely knew anything about her;
Wedding service: The 'couple' hoped to tie the knot at St James Church, Gloucester;
Gloucester Crown Court heard Merselina, a Dutch national, told police she had been recruited by Bello at a pop festival in Holland.
Loreen Merselina was jailed for 300 days for her role in the scam;
Mr Steen said Bello continued to claim it was a genuine relationship and told police he had first met her at Notting Hill Carnival.
‘But he appeared to know little about her except that she was “big, black and liked smoking and chicken burgers”,’ Mr Steen said.
Bello, a father-of-two, from Peckham, South-East London, Carina Merselina, 25, and her sister Loreen, 35, of no fixed address, all admitted conspiracy to secure the avoidance of Bello being deported.
Judge William Hart jailed Bello for 14 months, Merselina for a year, and her sister, who had accompanied them in Gloucester, for 300 days.
Bello had lived in the UK since 2006 and a previous attempt by him to marry an EU national in 2008 had failed, the court heard.
He was desperate to stay in the UK with his partner so their two children could have a better life than in Nigeria, his lawyer said.
He realised he had been foolish and regretted his behaviour. Merselina, a student, agreed to take part in the scam because she needed the money, the court heard.
The judge said they had ‘engaged in a cynical commercial arrangement to try to flout UK immigration law,’ which only failed ‘due to the intervention and vigilance of others’.
He said: ‘This sort of offence is becoming somewhat prevalent – it strikes at the heart of the UK system for regulating the population.’
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