Woman win the right to stay in the UK with wedding they don't even turn up for! Ruling after Ghanaian's marriage 3,000 miles away - to a German

Mr Awukus solicitor, Jennifer Owusu-Barnieh, pictured, defines proxy marriage as the process where a couple can get married with their consent but without being present at the ceremony

Foreign nationals can get UK residency by marrying EU citizens in overseas ceremonies which they do not even have to attend, it emerged last night.
Details of the little-known practice have been spelled out in the case of a Ghanaian man, who has fought a four-year legal battle to live in Britain following a ‘proxy wedding’ 3,000 miles away.

Neither Albert Awuku, 43, or his bride – a German citizen who can live in the UK under EU free movement rules – needed to be present at their nuptials in Ghana in February 2013.

Instead, they are thought to have been represented by their families in accordance with the country’s ‘customary law’ on marriages.

At such weddings, the groom’s father typically offers gifts and drink to the bride’s father for her hand in marriage.

Months after the couple tied the knot, their marriage was registered in Ghana and the wedding certificate used in Britain in a bid to win residency rights for Mr Awuku.

As there were no exit or entry stamps from Ghana or the UK on his passport to show he had attended the ceremony, his marriage was considered by the Home Office to have ‘taken place by proxy’.
Then-home secretary Theresa May refused his application for residency because she was not satisfied Mr Awuku’s ‘claimed marriage’ was registered in accordance with Ghanaian law.

Her decision was later overturned by a judge at a first-tier immigration tribunal – who was happy with the documents provided by the couple and satisfied the wedding was ‘properly executed’.

But Mrs May appealed to a higher tribunal and won. However, Mr Awuku then went to the Appeal Court to challenge that ruling, claiming that his human right to a family life with his wife – who is of Ghanaian descent – had been breached.

Now after a four-year battle, Mr Awuku – represented by human rights barrister Zane Malik and a London-based solicitor specialising in proxy marriages – has scored a major victory at the Appeal Court which has paved the way for him to be granted residency in the UK.

Mr Awuku has scored a major victory at the Appeal Court, pictured, which has paved the way for him to be granted residency in the UK