Paedophile hoaxer used international casting website to hire CHILDREN for ... trends now
A convicted paedophile who staged an elaborate £10,000 fake funeral at a London church used an internationally renowned casting platform to hire child actors, MailOnline can reveal.
The bizarre funeral at the London Oratory church last month sparked international media attention when it emerged that the presiding priest had dramatically stopped the service upon realising that it was being filmed, that the mourners were paid actors and the coffin was empty.
Today, MailOnline can also reveal the first images of the horse-drawn hearse that convicted paedophile Jacky Jhaj, 38, paid for to carry the empty coffin.
Speaking anonymously to protect her son, the mother of one of the children Jhaj hired revealed the paedophile asked for and received photos of her 13-year-old son and even knew their home address.
She blamed leading casting website Backstage for allowing the paedophile to use its platform to lure children to use in his sick hoax.
Missing Latvian student Lauris Zaube, 23, was the name Jhaj used for the 'dead man' at the fake funeral.
Earlier this week, MailOnline revealed Zaube's body was found in a Latvian river after he wandered off alone from a New Year’s Eve party in the Baltic country. Lauris is believed to have drowned after accidentally falling into a river after leaving the party near the Latvian capital of Riga.
MailOnline can reveal the first images of the horse-drawn hearse that convicted paedophile Jacky Jhaj, 38, paid for to carry the empty coffin
The convicted paedophile seemed to spare no expense for the peculiar hoax funeral
The convicted paedophile who staged the elaborate £10,000 fake funeral (pictured) at a London church used an internationally renowned casting platform to hire child actors, MailOnline can also reveal
Convicted paedophile Jacky Jhaj, 38, (pictured) organised the bizarre fake funeral with an empty coffin
The body of business management student Lauris Zaube, 23, (pictured) was found in the River Lielupe in Latvia on March 26
Jhaj previously held a similar event in which he hired young girls to pretend to faint as he walked up and down a red carpet
Dozens of child actors as young as six were recruited as supposed film extras dressed in school uniforms for the event
The concerned mother said: 'The industry is not safe. That really worries me.
'A trusted casting platform put my son at risk.
'I don't want there to be any implication for my son. The information that I provided - what's it going to be used for?
'What was the endgame? What was Jacky Jhaj getting out of it?
'[My son] is just finding it peculiar. The darker fact of it, I have shielded him from that.
'There's such a lack of safeguarding in the industry. This is a convicted sex offender. This is a serious situation.'
Jhaj is an exhibitionist would-be influencer with a track record of staging strange events to be filmed.
He has on at least two occasions posed as a film producer or film star.
He was behind a similarly bizarre event last November when a fake red carpet scene was shot in London's West End which saw 90 children and dozens more teenage extras hired to provide a crowd to be filmed.
The funeral was meant to be that of 23-year-old Latvian man Lauris Zaube (pictured), whose body was found in a river last month
