A vicar has been jailed for four years for his role in Britain's biggest sham marriage fraud.

The Reverend Alex Brown's scam helped hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in the UK.

He abused his position to marry hundreds of desperate African men to hard-up Eastern European women at his small parish church in East Sussex.

The Church of England vicar, 61, carried out the "massive and cynical scam" over a four-year period.

It involved women being paid up to £3,000 to wed to help illegal immigrants gain permanent residency in Britain.

He presided over 383 marriages at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards-on-Sea, between July 2005 and July 2009.

He oversaw a staggering 30-fold rise in marriages during this period — compared to the previous four years.

The vicar was found guilty at Lewes Crown Court in July of conspiring to facilitate the commission of breaches of immigration laws.

Solicitor Michael Adelasoye, 50, and "recruiter" Vladymyr Buchak, 33 were also found guilty.

Judge Richard Hayward also handed Brown a five-month sentence after he pleaded guilty to solemnising a marriage according to the rites of the Church of England without banns being properly read.

The two sentences will run concurrently.