Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman is to ask the Attorney General to review the sentences handed down to a woman and her former husband who cheated seven would-be husbands out of £36,000.
He thinks they are not tough enough.
Mr Sheerman said he thought the sentences given to Sidra Fatima, a former Huddersfield woman, and her husband Raja Haider Ali were unduly lenient.
Fatima was handed a suspended jail sentence while Ali – who carried out a huge mortgage fraud – was jailed for 30 months.
Bradford Crown Court heard last week that Fatima, a mother-of-two, who now lives in Dewsbury, had operated a scam whereby she posed as a prospective bride on a match-making website.
After an initial meeting she would agree to marriage and insist the suitors hand over money to pay for the wedding and give her a dowry.
Ali would pose as her brother or cousin in the team effort.
In a website, Fatima described herself as a simple person learning from life.
“I am looking for someone who knows the meaning of love” she said.
But the court heard that her would-be husbands – who came from Yorkshire and southern England – had suffered “humiliation, debt and misery”.
Judge Colin Burn sentenced Fatima to 12 months in prison suspended for two years after hearing she was suffering from mental health problems including depression.
Unemployed taxi driver Ali, 45, of Springbank Road, Bradley Mills, received a 30 months jail sentence after admitting involvement in six of the wedding offences as well as further fraud matters relating to two bogus burglary claims and swindling £36,000 from a man who thought he was able to buy a property from him.
But Mr Sheerman said: “Everyone has the right to refer matters to the Attorney General and it seems extraordinary that this couple have preyed on so many innocent victims and extricated so much money from them and made them suffer so much misery and humiliation.
“There are some sentences that just do look rather odd and I think these are one of those.”
