A sham marriage fixer who recruited desperate brides outside school gates has finally been jailed - four years after disappearing.
Andzelina Surmaj organised bogus wedding ceremonies at churches in Accrington, Clayton-le-Moors and Manchester over more than two years.
She pleaded guilty in February 2012 to five counts of assisting unlawful immigration and one count each of giving a false address at her sham marriage and possessing a fake Czech Republic ID card.
The Polish national was bailed to appear for sentence at Burnley Crown Court in March 2012 however a warrant was issued for her arrest after she failed to turn up at court.
Her partner and co-accused Milan Cina, then aged 38, of Lister Gardens, Bradford, was previously jailed for five years after he also pleaded guilty to five counts of assisting unlawful immigration and acting as a witness at another ceremony.
Mum-of-four Surmaj, now 34, was arrested by police after she handed herself into a station in Bradford.
She has now been jailed for a total of 44 months.
Mark Stuart, defending, said she had not left her home on Washington Road in Bradford for the last four years.
He told the court: “She had very little by way of support and she quite simply panicked.
“Her mother and father both weren’t well.
“She quite simply buried her head in the sand and went back to the house where she’d been.
“It’s caused her over the years quite a lot of problems.
“She has not been able to take her children to school because she may have been seen, she has not been able to claim benefits and not been able to work.
“She has basically been stuck in the house and looking after the kids.
“To be quite frank the time came when it couldn’t go on any longer.
“The children were asking why she wasn’t going out and doing this and that.
“She has been stuck in her own house for the best part of three or four years and she just thought ‘enough is enough’ and she has got to face up to it at some stage.
“To be fair to herself and to her credit she just walked into the police station and said ‘I’m here’.
“I accept it’s a flagrant breach because she knew she should have turned up and she didn’t.”
Sentencing, Judge Beverley Lunt said Surmaj had been ‘at large for a very, very long time and for no good reason’.
