Paedophile hosts fake funeral with young actors in puffer coats

A CONVICTED paedophile tricked undertakers into organising a fake funeral in one of London’s most venerated churches using young actors as mourners.

Jacky Jhaj, 38, is believed to have paid more than £10,000 to a funeral director for the service at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington on Monday.

No expense was spared, with a horsedrawn carriage, two high-end cars and a full choir. However, when Father Rupert McHardy, 49, arrived in his robes to conduct the ceremony, he realised something was awry.

The dozen or so “guests” who arrived for the ceremony had turned up late, with many wearing black puffer jackets and face masks. Fr McHardy had been told the funeral was being held for Lauris Zaube, a 23-year-old Latvian man who went missing after a New Year’s Eve party west of Riga.

Jhaj is said to have posed as the missing man’s brother, wearing dark glasses and giving his name as “Clyde”, while refusing to respond to Fr McHardy’s requests for more information.

Fr McHardy cancelled the funeral after the “mourners” revealed that they were actors and began complaining they had not been paid.

Footage of the service shows a crowd

‘People are usually early or on time for funerals. The funeral directors then told me there was no body’

of actors wearing black bomber jackets inside the church, with cameras on tripods set up behind the pews.

Fr McHardy said that many of those hired appeared young and suspected they may have been sent from an acting school. He said: “I arrived in my full robes and nothing struck me as strange until the guests arrived 15 minutes late.

“People are usually early or on time for funerals. The funeral directors then told me there was no body. There was a lot of confusion at the time about what was really going on.”

When presented with a mugshot of Jhaj, who was jailed for four years in 2016 for a string of sexual offences with 15-year-olds, Fr McHardy confirmed it was the same man at the service.

Latvian police said that they are still actively investigating the disappearance of Mr Zaube and no death certificate has been issued.

T Cribb and Sons, a family-run funeral directors in east London, said that they had received £10,000 via bank transfer five days beforehand to arrange the funeral. The firm were told it would be a cremation burial and that the deceased’s family would bring an urn with the ashes to the church that would then be buried in the coffin.

Rubin Italia, a solicitor at Stokoe Partnership Solicitors, said that the organiser could be charged with forgery for handing over a fake death certificate. The Met Police and Jhaj have been approached for comment.