Call for new powers over bogus marriages

Registrars are today demanding fresh powers from the Home Office to help beat sham marriages.

Senior registrars are meeting officials to ask for the right to cancel marriage ceremonies they believe are being carried out simply to get a visa.

The call comes after leaked immigration department documents revealed the astonishing extent of bogus weddings taking place in Britain - up to 15,000 every year. This is 10 times the official estimate.

In some London boroughs up to half of all ceremonies may involve a British or European Union citizen being paid to marry an illegal immigrant so they can gain a visa.

The Society of Registrars wants its members to have new powers. At the moment they can only stop a sham wedding if they can prove the bride or groom have given false identities or addresses.

Mark Rimmer, secretary of the society and registrar in Brent, which has one of the worst bogus marriage problems, said: "You would like to think we would be able to have powers that, if they were not legally allowed to live in this country, or they were in breach of immigration rules, that we would be allowed to stop the marriage."

Visas are being issued to Romanians and Bulgarians again today - a week after being suspended because of fraud. The decision to relax the ban is thought to have been taken at the immigration crisis summit chaired by Tony Blair on Tuesday but not announced at the time.

The Foreign Office said cases which were "not in doubt" were being processed while others were still being blocked pending an inquiry.