Immigration officers lead away the handcuffed would-be bride

Criminal gangs charge �5,000 to arrange a marriage which will give a bride or groom greater rights to stay in the UK.

They target areas outside large cities where some registrars believe up to one in three marriages is now a sham.

Registrars do provide police with details were possible - leading to 11 arrests recently - but are frustrated they have no power to stop marriages.

In Peterborough in Cambridgeshire there were 140 last year and in Luton, Bedfordshire, the figure is thought to be as high as one in three marriages.

Latest sham marriage arrests Peterborough, 5 Colchester, 1 Ipswich 3 Harlow 2

At one suspected sham wedding in Harlow, Essex, immigration officers moved in to arrest a would-be bride and groom minutes before the ceremony after a tip-off by the registrar to the Home Office.

The couple were led away in handcuffs. If found guilty of offences under the Immigration Act they could face up to seven years in jail.

Mark Rimmer, a superintendent registrar, said false documents handed in by couples were flooding into offices outside the big cities.

"We are looking to have powers to say if somebody comes in with forged documentation and we have got irrefutable evidence that that documentation is forged, we can stop the wedding," he said.

"That's a basic. I think we should also have the powers to report directly to the police and the police should be able to come in and arrest people."