THE Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has given evidence in a trial in which a couple face jail for faking a wedding to try to stay in the UK.

Ugandan couple Samuel Bisaso and Rebecca Muwonge were married in 1996 by Dr Sentamu, who was then working as a vicar in South London.

According to reports in a national newspaper, a photograph of Dr Sentamu, right, at the wedding in 1996 was submitted in evidence in the two-week trial held at Hove Crown Court in East Sussex.

The couple, both aged 44, face jail after being found guilty of marrying again in 1998, when Rebecca Bisaso pretended to be her 18-year-old niece, Proscovia Kasozi.

The niece has British citizenship, which enabled the couple, who have three children aged between two and nine, to get British passports.

Rebecca Bisaso told the court that the second wedding was valid and that she really was Proscovia Kasozi, but the jury was shown the wedding photograph with Dr Sentamu in 1996 to disprove the claim.

The couple, who were arrested in 2009 after an investigation by the UK Border Agency, were found guilty of making false statements that they were unmarried at the second wedding and possessing false passports. Samuel Bisaso was convicted of two charges of obtaining leave to remain in the UK by deception, and his wife was found guilty of two counts of assisting unlawful immigration.

Rose Kasozi, Rebecca Bisaso’s 55-year-old sister, was convicted of making a false declaration as a witness to the second marriage and her husband, James Kasozi, 59, was found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration by falsely claiming that Rebecca Bisaso was his daughter.

The couple will be sentenced in January, but judge David Rennie has said a custodial sentence seems inevitable.

Samuel Bisaso, who studied theology at the University of Gloucestershire between 1996 and 1999, came to the UK in the early 1990s.

The couple now live in Keelby, near Grimsby, and Samuel Bisaso became a chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers church charity in Immingham, near Grimsby.

He was also ordained by Dr Sentamu in 2002 as a minister in the Church of Uganda.