You swine! Bigamist kept wives 350 miles apart … and feigned cancer to explain his absences
A HEARTLESS bigamist pretended to his family he was dying so he could cover up his double life.
Michael Eels told his wife he had to move hundreds of miles north for lastditch cancer treatment.
In reality, the former telephone engineer was spending the time there with another woman he had married illegally.
Eels took thousands of pounds from each as he continued the deceit, at first visiting his wife and children once a month.
His lies were not exposed for seven years – until the two women contacted each other on Facebook and discovered the truth.
Last night, as Eels, 59, was beginning a jail sentence, his wife Andrea Etheridge, 58, who has reverted to her maiden name, said: ‘He’s just a heartless conman. He’s a liar and completely untrustworthy. I really don’t know how he could have done this, it takes something to make up all those lies. I don’t understand why he just didn’t ask for a divorce because I would have given him one.’
His other ‘wife’, Sally Howard, 58, said she had been left destitute, adding: ‘He financially and emotionally abused me. My future is ruined because I’m unable to trust again.’ It is believed Eels had already been married at least twice and had three children by the time he met Miss Etheridge in 1994.
They married in Gretna Green in February 2003 and have three children. But in 2009 he told his family he had terminal jugular vein cancer and was leaving their three-bedroom house in Eastbourne, East Sussex, to seek life-saving treatment in the North.
By then, he had secretly ‘married’ mother-of-three Miss Howard, who lived near Eastbourne, after meeting her online some years earlier and beginning an affair.
He persuaded her to drop her hairdressing business and move her family 345 miles to Northumberland be with him.
Eels tried to keep both relationships going, telling Miss Howard he was going on a business trip and leaving her at their cottage in Bellingham to visit Miss Etheridge and their children for a few days each month, Lewes Crown Court heard.
But in 2014 Miss Howard discovered a Christmas card to Eels from Miss Etheridge.
She sent her a message on Facebook asking if she was married.
The online message lay unopened in Miss Etheridge’s inbox until 2016, when she finally spotted it. By then Miss Howard had separated from Eels. The women agreed to meet, showed each other their marriage certificates and went to the police. Eels was arrested and last month pleaded guilty to bigamy. On Wednesday – Valentine’s Day, the day after what would have been his 15th anniversary with Miss Etheridge – he was sentenced to three months in prison.
Judge Christine Laing QC imposed a restraining order, preventing Eels from contacting either woman indefinitely. He was also ordered to pay them £1,000 compensation each.
Last night Miss Etheridge said she and Eels had initially been ‘just like any other family’. Then he began spending more than a week at a time away from home, saying it was for work. ‘The bombshell came in 2009 when he told me he was suffering from jugular cancer,’ she said. ‘He said he was dying but that he was staying up in Newcastle because the hospital had cuttingedge treatments and if he had any chance of survival then he would have to stay up there.’ She would send him money. ‘Obviously I wanted him to have the best treatment so I just went along with it. He did come down to tell my mum and dad, who were both in their 80s at the time, and he was crying as he did so.’ Recalling finding the Facebook message from Miss Howard, she added: ‘That’s when it all came out. We eventually met and spoke. She was a nice lady. I feel stupid and foolish for trusting him and being taken in by his lies but I’m glad he got what he deserved. I’ll never forgive him and I’ll never speak to him again in my life.’ Miss Howard, who has moved back to Eastbourne, said: ‘I trusted him. But he just became more and more controlling.’ He borrowed from her father to pay for their wedding and when her mother died she used her inheritance to pay his debts. They ended up on benefits because he would not allow her to get a job despite money problems. ‘I just felt so shameful,’ she told The Sun. ‘I feel like my life is worthless because of how he treated me. ‘Nobody who enters into marriage gets a guarantee of happiness but they are entitled to believe that the person they have chosen wants to provide happiness and security at the very least.’
‘He’s just a liar and a heartless conman’