Kebab shop teen paid £100 to marry in Pakistan

Aug 17 2008 By Billy Paterson

A TEENAGE kebab shop worker yesterday revealed how the owners paid her £100 to marry a Pakistani colleague after he was kicked out of Scotland.

Claire Given, 17, agreed to wed Shafiq Chaudhry when he proposed in a call from Dungavel detention centre before he was deported.

Now her lawyers are questioning the legality of the marriage and Claire admitted: "I don't know why I went ahead with it.

"I didn't love Shafiq and I didn't really want him. I was just stupid and naive."

Claire worked at Chaudhry's family shop in Catrine, Ayrshire, and had only known him for a few weeks when she agreed to the sham wedding in the Kashmir town of Mirpur.

Claire said: "Shafiq was in Scotland on a six-month visa but had stayed for three years.

"Last June he was stopped for driving without a licence and the authorities found out he was here illegally.

"I first met him at his uncle's house in Glasgow and we were together for a few weeks but he was seeing someone else and we broke up before he was taken to Dungavel.

"He phoned me from there last July and proposed. I was drunk and I agreed to go to Pakistan and marry him. His Uncle Farooq arranged everything."

Claire said Farooq obtained and paid for all the paperwork she needed and arranged the wedding last November.

She added: "I told my mum I was going to Glasgow to take a childcare course and worked in a jeweller's at weekends.

"He gave me £100 to show my mum that I had been earning while I was supposed to have been in Glasgow."

"In the time I knew Shafiq I only had sex with him once - on our wedding night.

"Then he arranged forme to havemy contraceptive implant removed at a private hospital.

"I felt pressured into doing that but I agreed. In Pakistan the women do what the men say.

"We never had sex again. I didn't want to be 17 and pregnant."

After she returned to Scotland, Claire said Farooq began phoning and telling her to go to court to say she missed Shafiq and wanted him back in this country.

She said: "I changed my number because I didn't want to get involved. I realised I had made a terrible mistake."

Her mum Caroline, 42, said: "I only found out about this about four weeks ago when I found Claire's passport and saw that she had been in Pakistan for a month at the end of last year.

"I was totally shocked when she told me what had happened."

Claire's solicitor Gerry Tierney said: "There was an Islamic ceremony in the house in Pakistan and I suspect that she is civilly married.

"I will investigate the possibility of an annulment but I think that she can only apply for a divorce under Scottish law which cannot be granted without the husband's consent until after two years separation. It's an outrage. She has basically been used as bride for rent."

When the Sunday Mail quizzed Farooq about his nephew's marriage he said: "I don't know." Then he hung up.

The Border and Immigration Agency said: "Marriage to a UK citizen is not enough to give someone the right to live in the UK.

"We make strict checks to ensure they intend to live permanently together in a genuine relationship."

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