Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Private scan ‘could harm unborn baby’
best I phoned the police and the Border Agency just in case she was trying to stay illegally.”
Ron met Cristel when he lived in Thailand with wife number seven and her friend Wan. The trio would socialise regularly.
He lost contact when that relationship collapsed.
But after his marriage to eighth wife Weng started to break down he struck up a friendship with Cristel in 2015.
Ron flew to the Philippines and spent that Christmas with call centre worker Cristel and her family in their rural home in Lubao, Pampanga.
He wasted no time and on New Year’s Eve asked the mum-of-one to marry him. She arrived last November and lived at his home in Somerton, Somerset. In a Mirror interview after they met, Ron, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease amongst other ailments, said: “This one is real love. This is the last one. I promise.”
Cristel insisted she was not using the sickly pensioner just as a way to get to Britain.
She said: “I know what it looks like but I am not here for a passport. I am not here to take advantage of Ron.” But despite his heartache, old romantic Ron insisted he has not given up on finding his “forever wife”. He said: “Cristel won’t put me off looking for love.
“Wife number nine is still out there, I just have to find her.
“As far as I’m concerned I’m back on the market.“I’m not going to say I haven’t already had women contacting me, I don’t know what it is about me, women just seem to flock to me.
“I’m batting them off. I think it could be my natural charm and charisma. I am great at impressions, I can do 54 different people like Norman Wisdom and Frank Spencer.
“Although I’ve got to be honest after all this time I sometimes think women could just be too much trouble.
“But I am determined to not die alone, I refuse to end up in a home and I will find someone who will loves me for who I am.”
Ron first got married in 1966, to Margaret. The couple had three children but divorced after two years. Wife number two was Jeanette in 1973. The marriage lasted a year. Ron wed Lesley in 1976 and they had two boys. He left her five years later and she died in 1996.
Then came Kathy in 1982. The couple, who had a daughter, worked at Pontins as bluecoats with Shane Richie. Ron married Sue in 1986 and had two boys. She threw him out 11 years later.
Usha from Singapore was next to tie the knot with him in 1999, followed by Wan in 2003 and Weng a year later.
Ron has been married for 44 of the past 48 years, the longest lasting 13 years and the shortest just 10 months.
He said: “The Tories should get me to negotiate Brexit, after all how many people have had as many divorces as me?” Cristel was not available for comment. PRIVATE clinics offering souvenir baby scans could be putting unborn children at risk, it is claimed.
Such companies are said to be offering the service before the recommended 10-week period.
The effect on babies of “4D scans”, which use a more powerful ultrasound than regular machines, is also unconfirmed.
And untrained operators are giving out unqualified diagnostic advice and getting the baby’s gender wrong, according to Care Quality Commission inspection reports.
Simon Mann, of Public Health England, said: “Parents must decide for themselves if they wish to have souvenir scans and balance the benefits against unconfirmed risk to the unborn child.”