A British paedophile arrested over a pretend wedding to a nine-year-old at Disneyland Paris staged fake funerals and film shoots with young girls in the UK, The Telegraph can reveal.
Jacky Jhaj is wanted in Britain for “failing to comply with the obligations of the British sex offenders register” after being convicted of multiple sexual offences against children.
The 39-year-old, who was described in a previous court case as a “dangerous sexual predator”, was arrested at the fake wedding, which took place at dawn on Saturday morning at the popular tourist resort for a reported €130,000 (£111,140).
Jhaj, who has not been named by French prosecutors but who The Telegraph understands is the man arrested, has a history of conducting bizarre stunts and is said to have played the groom at the wedding.
Police were called to the theme park after staff realised the bride, a Ukrainian national wearing a wedding dress and reportedly tottering on high heels, appeared to be a young child. They believed that it could have been an illegal child marriage.
Jhaj, who had been “professionally made up to look completely different” for the staged event, has been remanded in custody and charged with fraud, breach of trust, money laundering and identity theft.
A 24-year-old Latvian woman, who played the role of the bride’s sister, has been placed as an assisted witness, one step short of being charged under French law.
Jhaj was jailed for four years in 2016 after being found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with two 15-year-olds after posing as a film producer.
The then 29-year-old pretended to be 21 to groom the teenagers.
During his trial, it emerged that he had been driving around Hounslow in a Range Rover picking up schoolchildren, plying them with alcohol and giving them lifts to parties hosted by other pupils.
A series of strange events
Since his release, he staged a number of large-scale stunts often involving young women and children.
In July 2024, Jhaj pleaded guilty to two breaches of a notification order and a breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, Isleworth Crown Court confirmed.
The charges related to a fake film shoot he staged in Leicester Square, London, in October 2023, where 200 children and young women were recruited to appear alongside Jhaj as fans.
In April 2024, he used Backstage, an internationally renowned casting platform, to hire child actors in order to stage an elaborate £10,000 fake funeral at the London Oratory.
The funeral was held for Lauris Zaube, a 23-year-old Latvian man who went missing after a New Year’s Eve party near an iced-over dam west of Riga, Latvia.
Jhaj is said to have posed as the missing man’s brother, wearing dark glasses and giving his name as “Clyde”.
The funeral was cancelled after the “mourners” revealed that they were actors and began complaining they had not been paid.
In October, he organised a film shoot near the O2 Arena featuring a “controlled explosion” that destroyed a fake BBC lorry.
Jhaj was filmed standing naked in front of the vehicle as the explosion was triggered.
‘Day worthy of a princess’
Alexandre Verney, the assistant prosecutor for the Seine-et-Marne department, said that the fake wedding in Disneyland was filmed with “around 100 extras”.
“It wasn’t a wedding, but a staged wedding filmed with around a hundred extras. They hired Disneyland Paris, pretending it was a real wedding.”
It was to be “filmed privately and broadcast on social media”, said Jean-Baptiste Bladier, prosecutor of Meaux.
The girl’s mother allegedly told investigators that she wanted to organise a “day worthy of a princess” for her daughter.
A witness told Le Parisien: “We were not told at any time that it was about a film shoot. We all thought we were going to be part of a wedding. Everyone was stunned.
“No one expected this. Disneyland does things very well. They immediately cancelled when they understood that the bride was a kid. We were sickened by that.”
The prosecutor told The Telegraph the case had been handed over to an investigating magistrate and that “a formal request for mutual legal assistance will shortly be sent to the British authorities”.
Investigations including a medical examination of the nine-year-old found that “she had not been subjected to any violence or coercive acts”, the prosecutor’s office said.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “A 39-year-old man is wanted by the Met Police for breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a breach of a Sex Offenders’ Register notification requirement.
“We are aware the man has been arrested in France for other matters and officers are in contact with the French authorities.”
It is understood that no extradition request has been made at this stage.
In a statement, Disneyland Paris said that while it had received payment for the event, it was “immediately cancelled” by its teams “after significant irregularities were identified”.
The Meaux prosecutor’s office said Disneyland Paris was deceived as Jhaj “misrepresented himself as a Latvian national and used false documents to obtain the contract for the privatisation of the park”.
The Foreign Office and the Home Office have also been contacted for comment.
New Telegraph UK
