A number of families whose elderly relatives have fallen victim to ‘predatory marriages’ are leading calls for a change in the law.
The practice of ‘predatory marriages’ involves vulnerable adults who cannot take full care of themselves being led into a marriage that financially benefits their new spouse.
Leeds North-East MP Fabian Hamilton has taken the campaign to Parliament recently, with Prime Minister, Boris Johnson stating he will organise a meeting with the Justice Department to discuss the matter.
One of the cases highlighted by the MP involved a 91-year-old lady named Joan who suffered from dementia.
She had met a man 24 years her junior in the same year as her diagnosis and he moved in a month later. However, it only emerged following her death in 2016 that the pair had secretly got married with none of her family or friends knowing.
While the registrar believed Joan had the mental capacity to make the decision, her daughter claims her mother’s dementia was too advanced for this to be the case.
Under English law, the marriage revoked her previous Will which left everything to her children, with all her belongings and property now belonging to Joan’s husband.
Fabian Hamilton MP said a change in the rules would have prevented “a lot of evil people” from taking all the “worldly possessions and assets” from people targeted by the practice.
“I just want to protect the vulnerable,” he said.
“It’s such a simple thing to resolve and it is not party political. It would make a lot of lives better, and it would stop the very few people with evil intent from getting their way.”
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