Mom jailed for forced marriage scheme

A MOTHER who duped her daughter into traveling to Pakistan to enter a forced marriage was yesterday sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, following the first successful prosecution of its kind in Britain.

The woman was found guilty on Tuesday following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, in central England, where a jury heard how the girl sobbed as she was wedded to a male relative 16 years her senior.

“You had cruelly deceived her. She was frightened, alone, held against her will, being forced into a marriage she dreaded,” said Judge Patrick Thomas QC in sentencing.

The girl was forced to marry the same man who had taken her virginity and left her pregnant on an earlier trip to Pakistan. Then aged 13, she underwent an abortion on returning to Britain.

Her mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her daughter, said the pregnancy was a result of “two teenagers who had sneakily had sex,” prosecutors said. Jurors heard how as the girl approached her 18th birthday she was tricked into returning to Pakistan.

The couple

married

in September 2016 despite objections from the girl, before she returned to Britain with the assistance of the Home Office. Her mother was arrested in January 2017.

She was convicted of deceiving a victim into traveling abroad to enter into a false marriage — the first conviction of its kind — as well as other forced marriage and perjury charges.