Man posed as woman to marry male lover

A MAN pretended to be a woman and went through a register office 'wedding' ceremony so that his male lover could stay in Britain, a court was told yesterday.

Kim Brookes was born a man but regarded himself as a woman and had worn women's clothes for years by the time he met Turgut Rencber, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The two men formed an affectionate relationship and decided that the best way of ensuring that Rencber, a Turkish visitor to Britain, could remain in the country was as a British national's husband, Alistair McCreath, for the prosecution, said.

But they were found out when the transvestite community in London tipped off police. Yesterday each was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Brookes, 30, and Rencber, 27, both of Tiger Way, Clapton, east London, admitted making a false oath that Brookes was a woman for the purposes of a marriage, to a man at Walsall Register Office on 27 October 1989. Brookes also admitted making a false declaration in a notice of marriage, and for the purposes of procuring a marriage that he was a spinster and that there was no lawful hindrance to his marriage to a man.

The ceremony took place in October 1989 after Brookes borrowed his sister's birth certificate and altered the document relating to the change of his name by deed poll. No one at the register office suspected anything, Mr McCreath said.

Brookes's sister Gillian Pashby, 35, of Telford, Shropshire, was given a one-year conditional discharge after admitting causing a false statement to be made at a register office wedding.