Jailed...callous bigamist who claimed to be terminally ill
“His stories always seemed to ring true to us. What a world-class liar he was. I had no one to talk to as I had to remain strong for our children. They have been left without a father and no financial or emotional support.”
Second wife Miss Howard, meanwhile, told how she sold her belongings to keep cash coming in for Eels who refused to allow her to get a job.
When her mother died, she used her inheritance to pay Eels’s debts.
The £4,000 borrowed for their wedding remains outstanding.
Judge Christine Laing QC jailed Eels for three months and ordered him to pay Andrea and Miss Howard £1,000 each in compensation.
A restraining order was also imposed on him, preventing him from contacting either woman indefinitely.
Miss Howard said later: “The judge said in court that we had both married a conman and she is right. That’s exactly what he is.
“The three-month sentence is not long enough for the hurt he’s caused to so many people.”
She confronted him after learning he already had a wife. He still denied they were married and claimed another man had fathered the children, but it was all lies.”
Miss Howard, who split with Eels in 2013, said her family “thought the world” of him but can now “see through him”. She added: “I just want people to know what he’s done so he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Andrea and Eels had been together since 1994 and married in 2003. Yesterday she spoke of her shock over her husband’s secret second marriage.
She said: “Sally became suspicious and sent me a message in 2013 asking if I was also married to Michael. But it actually took me three years to finally open the message because I rarely use Facebook.”
The pair met up in Eastbourne and “sat in disbelief ” as the truth emerged. She added: “We both had our marriage certificates so the next thing I did was call the police.”
Andrea told of the betrayal as she had lived for three years believing that her husband was terminally-ill.
She said: “He would have tears in his eyes as he told our kids he didn’t have long to live and needed to get back to Newcastle for treatment.
“It was all a pack of lies and now I just feel betrayed, asking myself how I fell for it. All the time he was perfectly healthy and married to another woman and we were praying for him to pull through.” Second wife Sally sent message Mum-of-three Andrea was duped