A British man was among the four people arrested after he allegedly tried to stage a wedding between himself and a nine-year-old girl at Disneyland Paris.
39-year-old convicted sex offender Jaskarn 'Jacky' Jhaj, 39, was arrested along with the girl's mother, 41, at Disneyland on the Saturday morning (21 June). A 24-year-old Latvian woman and a 55-year-old Latvian man were also arrested at the scene.
The theme park said in a statement that 'a private event planned in our destination was immediately cancelled by our teams after the identification of important irregularities', and they alerted the police once they learned what was going on, who 'intervened on the spot as soon as possible'.
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They continued to say that they'd 'filed a complaint with the competent authorities' and were fully cooperating with the investigation.
Prosecutors described the event as 'a staged wedding that was to be filmed with a hundred extras' and that they had privately hired Disneyland 'claiming that it was a real marriage'.
The event was attended by an estimated 100 people, with many of them reportedly being hired extras.
A witness to the 'wedding' told French outlet Le Parisien: "We were not told at any time that it was about a film shoot.
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"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."
Another said they saw 'a small child with a wedding dress' at the event, and a significant number of people turned up to this staged ceremony before they realised exactly what was going on.
As for how Jhaj managed to get so many people to witness this alleged 'fake Disneyland wedding', the Daily Mail reports that a casting call was placed asking for up to '300 extras' for an 'exceptional live shoot' on the morning of 21 June, with people asked to dress in elegant wear with 'absolute confidentiality required'.
The Mail reports that the casting call was put out by a woman named Christelle Ka and that extras would be hired through the agency Le Casting Parisien.
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Anande Mare Cross, a casting director at Le Casting Parisien, issued a statement to LADbible on behalf of her and the company: "As the casting director responsible for finding the extras for the Disneyland Paris event based on a fabricated request, I feel it is my duty to respond clearly and truthfully.
"What was presented to us as a high-end luxury "wedding-themed rehearsal" turned out to be something extremely disturbing and unqualifiable act by a very sick man."
Cross continues to say she 'reached out to the extras to provide moral support and began documenting everything for possible legal follow-up' as soon as she found out.
She said: "As a survivor of childhood abuse, I cannot express strongly enough the revulsion and grief I feel for what occurred. I am particularly heartbroken for the families and children who were present that day, some of whom were kicked out of the park like criminals, left stranded in the early hours of the morning. It was inhumane, and I stand in full solidarity with the French artistic community I'm part of."
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Adding that she is 'deeply concerned by the systemic failures that allowed this to happen in the first place', Cross continued: "I stand today in anger and fierce solidarity with all the victims, and I'm most all relieved this little girl has been saved from hell.
"I now know that you can never be too thorough when vetting clients, and I vow to uphold even stricter investigative standards moving forward."
Jhaj is a convicted sex offender who has previously spent time in prison.
In 2016, he was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with two girls aged 15 after he told them he was a film producer, and he was jailed for four years after it was found that he pretended to be 21 so he could groom teenagers and pick them up from their school in a Range Rover.
In July 2024, he pleaded guilty to two breaches of a notification order and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
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According to the BBC, in 2023, he hired children as extras for public filming in Leicester Square, and teenagers reported being instructed to scream for him and reach out to try to touch Jhaj at a mock-up of a movie premiere.
The BBC reports that he was also seen giving gifts to children outside dance auditions and was later filmed posing naked in front of a lorry with the BBC World News logo on it that had been set on fire.
Tribunal judiciaire de Meaux told LADbible he had been 'indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, and identity theft', and was in pre-trial detention.
LADbible has contacted Christelle Ka for comment and has previously approached the Metropolitan Police and the Foreign Office for comment.
Topics: Crime, UK News, World News, Disneyland
Joe Harker