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Immigration officers raid genuine wedding

Immigration officers raided the wedding of two Harrods employees, only to discover that the wedding was genuine.

Agents halted the wedding of Massimo Ciabattini, 31, and Miao Guo, 34, at Camden Town Hall and grilled the bride, groom and bridesmaids for half an hour before realising that the wedding was genuine and not a sham event held to obtain a visa. The couple’s answers matched up, they were well dressed, and they had genuine bookings at a restaurant and hotel after the ceremony.

After realising their mistake, officers allowed  the wedding to resume.

The couple had fallen under suspicion after they struggled to spell each other’s names when they attended the hall to register their marriage. The brides’ visa was also due to expire within weeks, the Standard reports.

Camden Council flagged the planned wedding as a possible sham marriage.

A spokesman for the Council insisted: “We are legally obliged to report any suspected sham marriages or civil partnerships to the Home Office, based on the criteria outlined in the Immigration and Asylum Act of 1999. It is then for the Home Office to decide how to progress and whether to take action.”

Guy Taylor from campaign group the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said the Home Office operated “generally on a basis of mistrust”.

“This is a life event where people’s expectations, money and energy is being poured into this one day and the Home Office don’t seem to care about ruining it by not making better background checks. Why didn’t they interview them beforehand?”

 

The blog team at Stowe is a group of writers based across our family law offices who share their advice on the wellbeing and emotional aspects of divorce or separation from personal experience. As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge.

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Comments(5)

  1. me you says:

    Good job boys! So you were wrong this time. But dont give up!

  2. Luke says:

    I don’t see a problem here, it would have been better to interview them before – sure, but we don’t know the circumstances.
    The fact is that apparently 20% of marriages in London are suspicious, so things like this will happen. It is unfortunate but it is part of life here now and people need to be understanding and retain their good humour about such matters. To say the marriage day was “ruined” is ridiculous.

  3. Andrew says:

    Well, the dinner may have been a bit overcooked.

    Tasteless joking apart, who the hell would not regard their big day as being ruined by something like this?

  4. Luke says:

    “The couple had fallen under suspicion after they struggled to spell each other’s names when they attended the hall to register their marriage. The brides’ visa was also due to expire within weeks”
    ===============================

    If neither of you can spell the name of the other person that you are about to marry then I think that could be considered to be a potential problem 🙂

  5. maria says:

    In this modern times people fall in love with different races sp it is understandable if they mispell their names especially chinese names which are 20 letters and italian names with all the l’s and i’s its understandable.its obvious the staff saw two different races and thought ohh sham

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