Paedophile tricks undertakers into fake funeral in London church

Jacky Jhaj is believed to have paid more than £10,000 for service at Brompton Oratory in South Kensington on Monday

A convicted paedophile tricked undertakers into organising a fake funeral in one of London’s most venerated churches using young actors as mourners.
Jacky Jhaj, 38, is believed to have paid more than £10,000 to a funeral director for the service at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington on Monday.
No expense was spared with a horse-drawn carriage, two luxury cars and a full choir.
However, when Father Rupert McHardy, 49, arrived in his robes to conduct the ceremony, he realised something was awry.
The dozen or so “guests” who arrived for the ceremony had turned up late, with many wearing black puffer jackets and face masks.
Father McHardy had been told the funeral was being 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.
Jhaj is said to have posed as the missing man’s brother, wearing dark glasses and giving his name as “Clyde”, while refusing to respond to Father McHardy’s requests for more information.
Father McHardy cancelled the funeral after the “mourners” revealed that they were actors and began complaining they had not been paid.
Footage of the service shows a crowd of actors wearing black bomber jackets inside the church, with cameras on tripods set up behind the pews.
Father McHardy told The Telegraph that many of those hired appeared young and suspected they may have been sent from an acting school.
He said: “I arrived in my full robes and nothing struck me as strange until the guests arrived 15 minutes late.
“People are usually early or on time for funerals. The funeral directors then told me there was no body. There was a lot of confusion at the time about what was really going on.”
When presented with a police mugshot of Jhaj, who was jailed for four years in 2016 for a string of sexual offences with 15-year-olds, Father McHardy confirmed it was the same man at the service.
Police in Latvia said that they are still actively investigating the disappearance of Mr Zaube and no death certificate has been issued.
T Cribb and Sons, a family-run funeral directors in east London, said that they had received £10,000 via bank transfer five days beforehand to arrange the funeral.
The firm were told it would be a cremation burial and that the deceased’s family would bring an urn with the ashes to the church that would then be buried in the coffin.
John Harris, a partner at the company, said that all correspondence had been via email or phone, and that they had been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement [NDA].
He said that the company suspected the Russian “cremation certificate” they received was a fake.
Mr Harris said: “I didn’t sign [the NDA] and told him I had been in the business for a long time. We had a bit of a stand-off about that.
“It was only when we turned up on the day that we realised something was off.
“There was no one at our meeting point and normally people arrive early.
“Then the actors and professional mourners turned up and we started to wonder just what was happening.
“I spoke to the priest and he said he was feeling uneasy and I said I was feeling the same way.
“We met outside the church and we decided the funeral shouldn’t go ahead.”
He said that the police were called to the church and had passed the organiser’s details to Scotland Yard.
Rubin Italia, a solicitor at Stokoe Partnership Solicitors, said that the organiser could be charged with forgery for handing over a fake death certificate
“Any funeral directors would need a death certificate to arrange a funeral with the church. The offence could be using a false instrument,” he said.
The Metropolitan Police and Jhaj have been approached for comment.