Jacky Jhaj
Jaskarn "Jacky" Jhaj | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1985 (age 40–41) |
| Years active | 2016–2025 |
Criminal status | Registered sex offender |
Criminal charge |
|
Penalty | 4 years |
Jaskarn "Jacky" Jhaj (born 1985) is a British convicted sex offender who has conducted a number of public stunts, mostly involving children, which have received high-profile media coverage due to their bizarre nature.
In June 2025, Jhaj was the subject of controversy when he was arrested at the Disneyland Paris resort during a mock "wedding" to a 9-year-old girl.
Biography
2016 conviction and subsequent incidents
He was convicted in 2016 of four counts of sexual activity with two 15-year-old girls having pretended to be a film producer.[1] Jhaj had driven near schools in Hounslow in west London claiming to be a Hollywood film producer and offering alcohol.[1] He was sentenced to four years in prison.[2] He is on the sex offenders register.[2]
In 2023 Jhaj staged a mock film premiere in Leicester Square involving girls who were hired to pose as fans.[2] The children had been instructed to "cry, far-reach and faint" for Jhaj by the casting agency that had hired them.[1]
In March 2024, Jhaj paid £10,000 to child actors to stage a mock funeral at London Oratory for a missing Latvian man, posing as his brother and using a fake Russian death certificate.[3][4]
Jhaj was arrested in June 2024 after being witnessed talking to young girls in east London outside a dance school.[1] He also filmed them and took photos without the consent of their parents.[1]
2024 Silvertown fire
On 31 August 2024 in what Jhaj described as 'Project Dover' he started a large fire in an explosion "using gunpowder and a detonation cord" in a yard on Dock Road in Silvertown, Greenwich. A fake BBC News lorry and police cars were set on fire and destroyed while Jhaj posed naked for cameras.[5] He had initially worn prosthetics to disguise his identity.[5][6] The Evening Standard reported that Jhaj had " ... sat at a typewriter surrounded by hundreds of newspapers on the floor before flicking cigarettes at a police car, a police van and a BBC World News branded lorry which all exploded into a huge blaze".[2] 25 firefighters were involved in suppressing the fire.[2] No one was injured in the incident.[2]
2025 Disneyland mock wedding
In June 2025 he held a mock wedding ceremony with a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl at Disneyland Paris.[7] Authorities estimated the cost at €130,000.[3] Prosthetics were again used to disguise his identity.[1] The ceremony involved 100 extras who were paid €200 after responding to an advertisement posted online that described a "prestige wedding rehearsal" which required "absolute confidentiality".[1] A 55-year-old Latvian man was paid €12,000 to pretend to be the father of the bride but told the park security who informed the police after discovering that the bride was a child.[1] The girl had arrived in France with her mother two days before the incident. Both the girl and her mother are Ukrainian citizens.[1] Park staff called police, concerned that a child marriage was being conducted.[3]
He was subsequently held by French authorities and charged with fraud, identity theft and money laundering.[5][1] The Parisian prosecutors said that the girl involved had not been "a victim of either physical or sexual violence and had not been forced to play the role of a bride" and that a stolen Latvian form of identification had been used by the organiser.[5] The management of Disneyland said that the event was "immediately cancelled by our teams after major irregularities were identified" and that they were " ... cooperating fully with the authorities in their investigation, and have filed a complaint with the relevant authorities".[1] In October 2025, he was remanded in Meaux-Chauconin jail for a further four months. His lawyer said at the hearing that he had been harassed in jail and said the wedding was a film shoot.[3]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Aurelien Breeden and Lizzie Dearden (25 June 2025). "British Man Is Charged Over Attempted Mock Wedding With 9-Year-Old at Disneyland Paris". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Convicted paedophile 'behind huge film set explosion' near London's O2 Arena". The Evening Standard. 2 September 2024. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- 1 2 3 4 Song, Vivian (24 October 2025). "Paedophile who staged fake Disneyland wedding 'targeted in prison'". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2025-11-01.
- ↑ Tait, Albert; Stephens, Max (8 March 2024). "Paedophile tricks undertakers into fake funeral in London church". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2024-03-08.
- 1 2 3 4 Titheradge, Noel (29 June 2025). "The mystery of the paedophile who hired out Disneyland". BBC News. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- ↑ "Film set explosion causes blaze opposite O2 arena". BBC News. 31 August 2024. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- ↑ "British man charged over mock Disneyland wedding to child had been investigated by BBC". BBC News. 25 June 2025. Retrieved 29 June 2025.