A British man has been charged in connection with organising a ‘mock wedding’ of a nine-year-old girl in Disneyland Paris.
The man, 39, who is reportedly a convicted sexual offender and wanted in the UK, played the groom in the fake ceremony held on Saturday.
The unnamed man, as well as three others, was arrested after a guest playing the father of the groom phoned the police.
The guest, one of 100 hired extras, claimed that he was paid €12,000 (£10,000) and only realised the age of the ‘bride’ at the last minute.
French prosecutors charged the unnamed British man yesterday with several counts of fraud, abuse of trust, money laundering and identity theft.
The girl, a Ukrainian national, arrived in France with her 41-year-old mother two days before the phoney wedding.
Organisers placed a call-out for 200 adults and 100 children aged between five and 15 to take part in the event, French network BFMTV reports.
The advert said the event was ‘confidential’, only specifying that it was a wedding.
About 100 extras arrived at 5am to see the amusement park decked with white chairs, a wedding cake and a band.
Organisers reportedly used fake documents to book the park outside of opening hours for €130,000 (£111,000).
The ceremony was to be privately filmed, and organisers also allegedly hired ‘Latvian nationals ‘to ensure the smooth running of the event’.
According to Le Parisien, the ‘scared and confused’ girl wore a wedding dress and 12cm high heels ‘taped to her feet’.
The ‘groom’ had been ‘professionally made up’ to make his face unrecognisable, prosecutors added.
Disneyland staff shut down the event at 6am, with a witness telling BFMTV: ‘I saw a child dressed in white, I saw curly hair and a woman lifting her in her arms.
‘I was shocked, I burst into tears because I realised when I saw the child, it was atrocious.’
The girl showed no signs of physical or sexual abuse.
Four people were arrested, including the British ‘groom’, the girl’s mother, a 24-year-old Latvian woman who played the sister of the bride and the 55-year-old Latvian man hired to play the ‘father of the bride’.
The British man and the Latvian woman appeared in front of a judge yesterday.
As of today, only the man is being held by police. The woman remains a witness in the investigation.
Meaux prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said the man was ‘reportedly convicted in the past, including for offences of a sexual nature against minors’.
Bladier added: ‘He is, as such, listed in the British database of sexual offenders and is currently wanted nationally by the judicial authorities of his country of origin due to a breach of the requirements deriving from said order.’
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