A bigamist married his third wife the day after he signed a petition for divorcing his second, a court heard today.
Steven Smith, 52, tied the knot with his third wife in the same Gambian register office where he’d married his second wife, a woman from Teesside.
His second wife, believed to be from the Stockton area, was left in financial ruin after their marriage breakdown.
She is still waiting for her husband to sign divorce papers, Teesside Crown Court was told.
Smith said he acted “hastily” rushing down the aisle with his third wife, in her 20s, with whom he said he was in love.
In court, he claimed he was a wronged victim himself.
He said he was duped and abandoned by his latest spouse after he brought her to the UK following their nuptials on November 7, 2012.
The day before the wedding, he signed a petition for divorce from his second wife, whom he’d married in the same place.
The petition carried a signature purporting to be from his second wife. It was since found not to be hers, said prosecutor Rachel Masters.
Smith married his second wife in December 2005. It broke down two years later.
She had to declare herself bankrupt after her estranged husband failed to make mortgage payments as they agreed.
He went missing and her solicitors received no reply ain efforts to start divorce proceedings. She reported him to the police when she found out that he’d remarried.
Smith admitted a charge of bigamy - a “now rather uncommon offence”, said a judge. It was his first conviction.
He said he’d thought he was divorced and that his absence made divorce “automatic”.
Robert Mochrie, defending, said: “This was a man who acted rather hastily.
“He would have been well advised to await finalisation and a degree of certainty as to the state of the divorce proceedings involving his second wife.
“He chose not to do so.
“It is you might think absurd somebody is getting married on the same day they are handed a divorce certificate.
“But that is what this defendant says happened.
“If he’d waited just a few months perhaps, a divorce might well have been finalised.
“This cost him an awful lot of money, both in the wedding ceremony and the involvement of lawyers in Gambia.”
He said this was not a case of a man leading a double life, nor was not a sham marriage for Smith, whose motive was love.
“It was a young lady in her early 20s. This defendant, born in 1961, was perhaps understandably taken by her and was keen to tie to knot,” said Mr Mochrie.
“He’s the one who was duped by his third wife as to her intention. He has been wronged. He was abandoned by his third wife.
“Her intentions were quite clearly to dupe a man of more senior years, as so often happens with men who travel to foreign lands to seek happiness.”
Judge Tony Briggs told Smith he had “considerable sympathy” for his second wife, prevented from divorcing him by his lack of cooperation.
He said: “I can well understand her being extremely upset by the thought that you’d married again without the courtesy of going through a divorce with her.”
He found it impossible to know what was in the mind of Smith or his third wife, who has not been traced.
He added: “One thing is perfectly clear - that those who know they’ve been previously married and wish to marry again are under a very considerable and serious duty to ensure that they’ve been divorced from their previous spouses.
“It is of vital importance and it should be seen perfectly clearly that these courts do their duty to ensure that the seriousness of that is recognised.”
He did not jail Smith in light of his early guilty plea and previous good character.
Smith, of Whitwell-on-the-Hill, York, received a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years with 150 hours’ unpaid work.
The judge advised Smith to recognise reality and sort out his divorce from his second wife, though he had no power to direct it.
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