{"id":2595,"date":"2011-03-16T15:30:08","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/03\/anglican-priest-arrested-on-ma.php"},"modified":"2011-03-16T15:30:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T15:30:08","slug":"anglican-priest-arrested-on-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/anglican-priest-arrested-on-ma","title":{"rendered":"Anglican Priest Arrested on Marriage Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (RNS) A Church of England vicar has been arrested in Britain&#8217;s second major police investigation in as many years into bogus marriages staged to help immigrants win residents&#8217; visas.<br \/>\nThe church immediately suspended the Rev. Canon Patrick Magumba amid claims he was involved in scores of sham weddings at three churches in northeast England.<br \/>\nLast year in a similar case, a vicar was sent to jail for conducting some 360 fake weddings to help foreigners evade immigration regulations.<br \/>\nThe 58-year-old Magumba, who came to Britain from Uganda, is accused of failing to read out the banns that are designed as part of a safety net to make sure a marriage is legitimate.<br \/>\nThe banns involve reading the names and addresses of those getting married during three separate Sunday services and are necessary in this country to acquire a marriage certificate.<br \/>\nWith that document, the government&#8217;s Home Office said, immigrants who otherwise would have no legal right to stay in Britain could remain in the country as the &#8220;husband&#8221; or &#8220;wife&#8221; of a bogus spouse.<br \/>\nMagumba has been released on bail, and the Church of England said in a statement his &#8220;license to operate as a minister of religion&#8221; had been suspended while the police investigation continued.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; AL WEBB<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (RNS) A Church of England vicar has been arrested in Britain&#8217;s second major police investigation in as many years into bogus marriages staged to help immigrants win residents&#8217; visas. The church immediately suspended the Rev. Canon Patrick Magumba amid claims he was involved in scores of sham weddings at three churches in northeast England.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-news","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Anglican Priest Arrested on Marriage Charges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/anglican-priest-arrested-on-ma\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anglican Priest Arrested on Marriage Charges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"LONDON (RNS) A Church of England vicar has been arrested in Britain&#8217;s second major police investigation in as many years into bogus marriages staged to help immigrants win residents&#8217; visas. 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