Couple win damages against PSNI over ‘sham marriage’ arrest

A Chinese woman and her Northern Irish husband who were arrested minutes before they were to be married in Derry four years ago have been awarded over £20,000.

Yanan Sun McElwee and her husband Neil McElwee took a civil action against the Chief Constable of the PSNI for their unlawful arrest.

Judge Donna McColgan QC awarded the damages and costs in favour of the couple after she found they had been unlawfully arrested by the police who had wrongly suspected that a sham marriage was about to take place in the Guildhall on July 19th, 2011.

The police officer in charge of the arrest operation told the court he was acting on information contained in documents sent to him by the UK Border Agency, just hours before the wedding was to take place.

Ms Sun McElwee was awarded damages and costs of £12,500 and her husband Neil McElwee was awarded damages and costs of £9,000.

Mr McElwee told Judge McColgan that he met Yanan Sun in 2010 and when they discovered she was pregnant 10 months later, they decided to bring forward their wedding plans. He said all the necessary paperwork had been checked by their solicitor who was among the 50 guests at their wedding.

When they arrived they were asked by the Registrar of Weddings, Michelle Duddy, to come into a small side room. Inside was the arresting officer who was accompanied by four other officers and who also had members of the tactical support group on standby.

Mr McElwee said the officer told him and his wife to be that they were being arrested on suspicion of carrying out a sham wedding.

“It was surreal. I could not believe what was happening. Yanan was absolutely in bits and I felt angry because I was powerless to help her,” he said. “I could tell by looking at the police officers that they knew they had got it wrong, I knew by their faces, they looked disheartened.”

Mr McElwee said the officers told Ms Sun to change out of her wedding dress into casual wear. During their four-hour long detention in Strand Road Police Station, where they were kept in separate cells, she was then given police issue clothing to wear.

Mr McElwee said he told his best man to tell the wedding party to attend the already paid for reception in the Argort Hotel in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, where the couple then lived.

The couple, who have two daughters, Isobelle and Cybil Grace, now live at Dundrean Park in Derry.

Mr McElwee said he and Yanan were married the day after their arrest, both dressed in casual clothing, in the Guildhall Registry Office.

Yanan Sun McElwee said she came to Northern Ireland on her own from China in 2009 when aged 19. She enrolled as an English student in the Foyle Language Centre. She told Judge McColgan that as a result of the disruption to her wedding, she received counselling and is afraid to open the door of her house to callers.

The groom’s mother Rita McElwee told the court that she was standing among the other wedding guests in the foyer of the Guildhall just minutes before the wedding was due to have taken place.

“A police officer announced that he had reason to believe it was a sham wedding and that he had arrested Neil and Yanan and taken them to Strand Road Police Station,” she said.

The police officer who conducted the arrest and detention operation told the Court that he did so after reading correspondence from the UK Border Agency on the morning of the planned wedding.

“The suggestion in the papers was the wedding was about to take place and it was not all that it seemed to be,” he said.

“I had a decision to make, arrest the couple or not. After I had spoken to an officer in the Border Agency and read the documentation that he had sent me, I had no real option but to arrest the couple.

“I knew the arrests were going to be sensitive. When the couple arrived I told them I was in receipt of information which suggested a breach of the immigration legislation was about to take place,” he said.

“I regret this matter deeply as to what happened,” the officer added.