Home Office whistleblower claims agency ignored sham marriages

A sacked immigration officer is taking his ex-bosses to court after alleging they let hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the country by turning a blind eye to sham marriages.

Neville Sprague from South Croydon claims he was hounded out of the UK Border Agency(UKBA) in Croydon for attempting to expose the fake weddings, which allow foreign nationals to stay in Britain illegally enjoying free healthcare, housing and education.

He plans to reveal shocking evidence of the practices within Lunar House when he gives evidence at an employment tribunal he has brought against UKBA claiming unfair dismissal.

The 56-year-old believes he annoyed bosses by having staff who were not busy investigate sham marriage cases ignored by other departments rather than “twiddling their thumbs”.

He claims more than two-thirds of the sample of weddings he investigated were shams, often with an easy-to-spot mistake which gave the game away.

The random samples he looked into predominantly involved Ghanaians paying more than £10,000 to illegally wed a British citizen, with fake stamps added to the latters’ passports to make it appear they had flown to Africa to get married.

But the former police detective said the documents, which would be sent to the Home Office to apply for a spouse visa, often included spelling mistakes and tell-tall errors in the stamps.

He said: “The alleged checks and balances that were in place were wholly inadequate - the fraudsters had realised that and were circumventing them.

“My bosses kept saying ‘it’s not our remit’ but I thought it was better people were doing something than nothing.”

He was suspended for gross misconduct in March 2008 and sacked a year later after a string of disagreements with his superiors - but he believes he was fired over fears the scale of the problem would become public.

As well as lodging his claim for wrongful dismissal, Mr Sprague has also sent evidence from his bogus marriage investigation to Immigration Minister Damian Green.

Sham marriages hit the headlines last week when a Sussex vicar was convicted of carrying out more than 350 bogus weddings to help illegal immigrants stay in the UK.

Gareth Redmond, UKBA director for south east England, said: “Owing to the ongoing legal proceedings we are unable to comment on the details of this case, other than to say that the UK Border Agency will be vigorously defending our approach in this case.

“Cracking down on bogus marriage is a high priority for the UKBA and we are in the middle of an intensive period of focused enforcement activity over the summer.

“Over the past three weeks alone, we have carried out over 30 operations to tackle sham marriage facilitators and offenders.

“The conviction of Rev Alex Brown and his co-conspirators in Sussex last week also shows the very serious consequences that face those who facilitate sham marriages.

“We are determined to make it harder than ever for illegal migrants to stay in the UK.”