Fake marriage migrant back in UK...to sue YOU
A NIGERIAN deported from Britain after a fake marriage has set up home in Scotland – and is demanding compensation from the taxpayer for ‘frustration and anxiety’.
Adebayo Aina was given a prison sentence for paying £4,000 to ‘buy’ a bogus bride in a bid to stay in the UK. He was then spared jail in exchange for returning to Nigeria.
But the 29-year-old has returned – and is now claiming tens of thousands of pounds in compensation through the Scottish courts.
Despite the fact he does not have the right to remain permanently, he has won the backing of a judge.
Although he insists he has been badly treated, critics last night said his case highlights the failings of the immigration system.
Alex Wild of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘This has been a fiasco and it looks like it’s going to cost taxpayers a fortune.
‘Those in the Home Office responsible for the dithering in reaching a decision over whether this man can stay in the UK need to be held to account. It’s clear that the rules and processes are in dire need of a change.’
Aina came to Britain as a student ten years ago. In 2009, he paid a fake wedding broker who arranged for him to marry Slovakian Martina Keselova at St Andrew’s Church in Accrington, Lancashire. Both bride and groom were later arrested.
Keselova, who was jailed for 16 months, said when held: ‘I do not love that man. I got paid £1,500.’
Rev David Lyon, former rector of the two churches at the centre of the sham marriage scandal said: ‘It’s embarrassing to think we were naïve and exploited in this way. They were abusing a loophole in the law.’
In 2010, Aina was sentenced to 12 months after being found guilty of procuring a false marriage and trying to remain in the UK by deception.
He did a deal with the authorities and in January 2011 agreed to be deported to Nigeria instead of serving his full jail term.
Two months later, he married his real girlfriend, a British citizen, in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos. At first they tried to gain citizenship in Ireland, before moving to Germany.
He was refused permission to reenter the UK but did so in 2013 and applied for a European residence card on the basis he was married to a British citizen who had worked abroad. He was granted an initial six-month Certificate of Application which allowed him to work while the Home Office considered if he should be allowed to remain permanently.
The certificate lapsed before the Home Office reached a decision and was not immediately renewed. After repeatedly asking for the certificate to be renewed, he launched a court case claiming he had been unfairly treated. He demanded £44,000 compensation for loss of earnings, damage to his career, misconduct in public office plus depression, anxiety and frustration.
He was later given a new Certificate of Application and is now living with his wife, a nurse, in Dundee.
He continues to pursue his claim for damages. Earlier this month, a judge ruled his claims had a sound legal basis and scheduled a hearing at the Court of Session.
Aina insisted his family had suffered because of the Home Office’s refusal to give him the paperwork, saying: ‘We have gone many days without eating properly. Normal, basic things people take for granted, we couldn’t take for granted.
‘It was stressful. What did I ask? Just give me a document to work whilst doing this case because that’s the law. Give me the document to work whilst I am doing this.
‘People pride the UK on being a very open society, a very fair society. But if you’ve never been through the court system, you will never know. If you have a sense of injustice it just spurs you on to fight on.’
He acknowledged he had broken the law by staging a fake wedding but claimed he had been struggling to afford the fees charged to foreign students so had wanted to become a UK citizen by marriage.
Last night, a Home Office spokesman said it was unable to comment on individual cases.
‘Looks like it’s going to cost taxpayers a fortune’