A 60-year-old vicar was charged yesterday with involvement in an alleged criminal conspiracy to organise “sham marriages” for illegal immigrants.

The Rev Alex Brown was one of four people arrested after a series of dawn raids in the Hastings area of East Sussex on Tuesday, which came after an 18-month investigation by Sussex Police and the UK Border Agency’s immigration crime team.

Police searched the offices of St Peter and St Paul Church, St Leonards, and arrested Mr Brown, who has worked in the parish for almost 20 years. He was charged with conspiring to facilitate unlawful entry and solemnising a marriage according to the rites of the Church of England without banns of matrimony being duly published.

Bladymar Buckak, 32, a Ukrainian, was charged with conspiring to facilitate unlawful entry, carrying out an act intended to pervert the course of justice and using a false document. He and Mr Brown are expected to appear at Hastings Magistrates’ Court this morning.

A 27-year-old Latvian woman who was believed to have been one of the brides and a 36-year-old Armenian man were arrested in Hastings and released on bail pending further inquiries. A commercial premises in Hastings, from which advice and translation services are offered to Eastern Europeans, was also searched during the raids, which involved more than 35 officers.

It is believed that the alleged scam centred on Eastern European migrants, who were in Britain legally, marrying illegal African immigrants so that they could claim residency. The immigration authorities suspended the issuing of residence cards for people married at St Peter and Paul Church 18 months ago, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Detective Inspector Andy Cummins, a senior investigating officer for the border agency and who led the operation, said that the arrests followed an investigation into allegations that sham marriages had been arranged at the church, allowing non-nationals to remain within the UK and EU member states.

Before his arrest, Mr Brown had informed the Diocese of Chichester of his intention to retire. He is due to step down at the end of next month. In the current issue of the local community magazine he wrote that he intended to move “back to the North of England to be nearer to my family”.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Chichester said: “The Church has been co-operating fully with the police and other agencies since the extent and seriousness of this matter came to light. The Rev Alex Brown has been suspended from his duties pending the outcome of the continuing police investigations.”

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