Leeds MP sets out 'horrifying story' of woman, 91, as he puts forward bill to protect people with dementia from 'predatory marriage'

Labour MP Fabian Hamilton said that registrars need greater training and powers to act if they see signs a person does not have the mental capacity to marry.

He called on ministers to close the "marriage loopholes" which saw one of his constituents, who suffered with dementia, able to marry a man 20 years her junior without her family's knowledge.

The Leeds North East MP, proposing his Marriage and Civil Partnership Consent Bill, told the Commons that more "robust procedures" were needed to protect the vulnerable and said "smiling at the time" of the marriage did not necessarily mean consent was given.

Mr Hamilton told MPs he was prompted to bring in his bill, via a 10 minute rule motion, after hearing a story he could "hardly believe was possible in modern Britain" from constituent Daphne Franks.

Mrs Franks revealed to Mr Hamilton that her 91-year-old mother Joan Blass had married a man more than 20 years her junior, despite having advanced vascular dementia, one year before her death.

Mrs Blass, a widowed former teacher and journalist, had lived in a house in Mrs Franks’ garden in Gledhow, Leeds.