A convicted British sex offender, Jacky Jhaj, is facing new charges in France after staging a fake wedding to a 9-year-old girl at Disneyland Paris, according to a BBC report. Authorities say the child was not harmed, but the incident has raised serious concerns about how Jhaj was able to pull off such elaborate stunts despite being under legal restrictions in the UK.

Who is Jacky Jhaj?

Jhaj, 39, a resident of West London, was jailed in 2016 for having sexual relations with two 15-year-old girls. He has been listed on the Sex Offenders Register and is subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order that limits his contact with minors.

Since his release, Jhaj has been known for organising large public events involving children, often disguising them as film shoots or staged performances.

How he pulled off the Disneyland event

According to the BBC, Jhaj used a fake Latvian ID to rent out Disneyland Paris after hours. He is said to have brought in a child actor from Ukraine to portray the bride and hired several adult actors for the event, with one reportedly receiving £10,000.

This was not Jhaj's first such stunt. In 2023, he organised a staged red-carpet event at Leicester Square, where children as young as six were paid to pretend to be his fans. Other similar events took place at locations like the British Museum, Oxford University, and the Royal Exchange.

Jhaj is said to have concealed his identity at these events by using disguises and prosthetic makeup. He also uploaded videos of these performances to a YouTube channel, which gathered over 12 million subscribers. Many of the videos stayed online for years before the BBC flagged them to Google.

The BBC got access to court documents that show Jhaj is banned from unsupervised interaction with underage girls and from contacting his previous victims. However, the order does not explicitly prevent him from organising public events involving children if adults are present.

At the Leicester Square event, several child participants were reportedly accompanied by adult chaperones, which meant the stunt may not have technically violated the legal order.

A UK police officer in charge of monitoring Jhaj told the BBC that managing several offenders at once is a “challenging” task. National guidelines recommend one officer for every 50 sex offenders, but in reality, the ratio can be as high as one officer for every 85 offenders.

Jhaj is currently being held in French custody. While Disneyland Paris has not commented on the incident, French prosecutors said that the theme park had been “deceived” by the organiser.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police in the UK confirmed that Jhaj is wanted for violating restrictions and is also under investigation for possible fraud.

The BBC investigation is ongoing, including how Jhaj managed to finance such large-scale events while remaining under police supervision.

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