Bigamy case ‘baffling’

A RUNCORN couple who married before the bride had completed her divorce from her former spouse have received a community order in a case of bigamy that ‘baffled’ a senior Cheshire judge.

Yvonne Daniels, 49, and Stephen James Gibson, 50, both of Mersey View, were sentenced at Chester Crown Court last Wednesday as the Weekly News was going to print.

The couple had each pleaded guilty on August 28 to one count of conspiracy to commit bigamy and one count of making false statements to a marriage register.

Chris Taylor, prosecuting, said Daniels had been married to a man called Clive Abbott who had taken her name of Daniels but the relationship fell into difficulties in late 2015 to early 2016 and they separated.

She later met Gibson and in December 2016 he contacted Mr

Daniels to discuss matters relating to the break-up such as collecting belongings, and Mr Daniels said this was the last he heard from them until another family member told him on June 1 last year that the defendant Daniels had married Gibson, with the ceremony having taken place on May 19, 2018.

It was discovered that they had begun divorce proceedings between November 2017 and April 2018 without the knowledge of her legal husband.

Mr Daniels contacted the police and they arrested the happy couple, who in interview June 6, 2018, made some admissions.

Police enquiries found that they had made false statements about Daniels being single to the registry office on March 28.

Mr Taylor said there was no need for them to circumvent normal divorce proceedings and then marry but they did.

Recorder Steven Everett, presiding judge, said the main aspect of the case that gave him concerns was that Gibson had taken on Mr Daniels’s loan shark debt.

However, he said the case was not like the conventional idea of bigamy cases, such as a conman marrying vulnerable women repeatedly to defraud cash or a sham marriage designed to circumvent immigration processes, but that they were a genuine couple and had simply not completed the proper procedure.

He added that there was no victim in the case, but the law is there to guard against abuses of the system.

Jeremy Rawson, defending Gibson, added that no-one was receiving any ‘advantage’ from the marriage.

Simon Christie, representing Daniels, had ‘nothing to add’ to Mr Rawson’s comments.

Both defendants were of previous good character.

Recorder Everett imposed a 12-month community order with a 10-day rehabilitation requirement.

Summing up, he said: “I’m struggling to understand why it is you committed the offence.

“If you take a long, hard look at yourself you took a joint decision, you carried on with the marriage, and you Yvonne Daniels hadn’t been divorced from your husband.

“It was such a stupid thing to do.”

He added: “For reasons that baffle me, you decided not to do it the proper way.”