Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LIAR & CHEAT
EXCLUSIVE Family’s heartache as he dumps them by text after affair with model is exposed
THE wife of UKIP leader Henry Bolton today tells of her pain and dismay at his relationship with a 25-year-old topless model and says: “My world has fallen apart.”
In a devastating interview that may heap pressure on him to quit, Tatiana Smurova-Bolton reveals he scoffed “No, no, no” when she asked just two weeks ago if he was leaving her.
That turned out to be a lie. And Tatiana says she was left “speechless” by pictures taken in her home and showing Bolton’s new love Jo Marney.
In one, his mistress puts her feet up on a stool which had been bought to mark a wedding anniversary.
And of Bolton’s “terrible betrayal”, Tatiana adds: “What kind of person runs away to sleep with another woman, leaving their two small children over Christmas? I’m still breastfeeding his child for goodness sake.
“I feel as though I’ve been thrown in a cold ocean and I’m just trying to stay on the surface.”
Tatiana also shares precious photos of her own to nail “lies” that she and her husband had already separated.
One shows a smiling Bolton, 54, resting a hand on his wife’s knee.
It was taken three days AFTER he was pictured with his arm around Jo.
The father of three has since said his Russian-born wife had been living abroad since July. He insisted there was no “clandestine affair”.
KISSES
However, Tatiana, 42, reveals Bolton sent her a text with kisses on Christmas Eve. And in an exclusive interview, she says she had no idea her husband of six years had left her for another woman until December 30 – when he told her by TEXT.
“I thought we were a happy family,” Tatiana says. “Until this week I never imagined he was going to end our relationship. I had absolutely no clue he has been cheating on me. My world has fallen apart.
“When you have been with someone for so long and have supported him through so much and always been there for him, you feel so betrayed on every single level.
“What made it worse is the lies. He told journalists his wife is ‘fully aware of what’s been going on’. No, I am not.
“I found out about his so-called ‘change in relationship status’ when I read online the statement he put out to UKIP members.”
Tatiana has been living in Vienna since the end of July, when her maternity leave ended after having second daughter Victoria in May 2016.
She and Bolton made the joint decision that he would stay in the UK to fight the UKIP leadership contest, while she returned to work at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe – where they met in 2006.
The UKIP role was unpaid – and the family needed Tatiana’s income. But the couple spoke or texted daily, Bolton visited twice – and Tatiana and their girls visited him at home in Folkestone, Kent, in October. On December 18 he flew to Vienna for Christmas. Over the following days he attended nursery parties for Victoria and eldest daughter Lucinda, four.
Then, on December 23, Bolton delivered a bombshell, telling Tatiana he was returning home that night. She says: “I was shocked. I said ‘I don’t understand. Are you leaving us?’ But he was horrified by the suggestion and said ‘No, no, no’.
“He told me he was stressed about not being in the UK to deal with his work, that when he is with us he is not able to concentrate on what’s happening in the party.
BEGGING
“I was begging him to stay, for the sake of the children, even just for one day, but he wouldn’t change his mind.
“Our eldest daughter was crying, but that still didn’t stop him. It wasn’t like he left and slammed the door. There wasn’t any conflict. No row.
“As he was leaving he gave me a hug and told me sometimes in life there are crises and this was clearly one of those and that he was sorry.”
The next day Tatiana received a text message from him with four kisses.
“I was so relieved,” she says. “It reassured me that it was a work crisis and not a crisis in our relationship.
“But then I heard nothing, not even on Christmas Day. By the 29th I was so worried about whether he was even alive, I texted asking if he was okay.
“A couple of hours later he replied saying he was fine and that he hoped I had a nice trip to Russia.”
Bolton, who has a daughter aged 32
from his first marriage, had been due to travel to Russia with Tatiana to celebrate the New Year with her family. But he hadn’t been able to get a visa.
Tatiana goes on: “The next contact I had was on December 30 when he sent an SMS saying we needed to talk.
“This was followed by another message saying there was something I needed to know – that he had been photographed leaving a restaurant with a woman and that at the moment the photo was taken, the woman had taken his hand.
“He said she wasn’t the reason that he came back before Christmas, that he spent Christmas alone and he hadn’t known her long.
“I told him I only had one question – whether he had anything with this woman? He told me he wasn’t going to lie, that he did. Everything came crashing down on me.
“I was so shocked and hurt. Ever since I’ve felt paralysed. I’ve been struggling on my own, working full-time to support our family while
raising his kids by myself, and this is how he repays me. I don’t recognise the man who has done this.”
Tatiana says his new job as UKIP leader had put a strain on the relationship because he was no longer around to help her with the children or able to support the family financially.
But she adds: “We had our ups and downs, but we loved each other. We were waiting until he was earning again, so we could rejoin him in the UK. I listened to his Christmas message as UKIP leader and he was appealing to people to be nice to a stranger this Christmas.
“How can he say that when he has left his wife and two little ones two days before Christmas despite them begging him to stay?
“He hasn’t apologised. He hasn’t even explicitly told me our marriage is over. He hasn’t had the courage.
“How can you betray your wife so terribly and then not even say sorry for all the pain you have caused? How can you treat the person you at least used to love like that? Nobody with any moral principles does that. He is an ex Army officer, an ex police officer.
“He has dedicated his life to helping other people. That is the man that I fell in love with. I never imagined that I would ever be in this situation.”
Tatiana then spoke of her horror at seeing photos posted on Twitter by Jo from inside the family home.
She explains: “One of the things that has hurt the most is that he let this woman into our family home, where we’ve had so many happy times.
“When I saw the photos I was speechless. That woman with her shoes on the stool that we had bought to mark one of our anniversaries.
“It was shaped a bit like a camel and the girls loved it, they would have fun sitting on it and riding it.
“So to see the photo of his lover with her shoes on it, those are the little details that really hurt. How dare she? She captioned it ‘chill’. Well, I’m so pleased for her that she enjoyed a nice chill after Christmas in someone else’s family home after helping someone else to cheat on his wife.”
Reports have suggested Bolton met Jo at a UKIP party on December 16.
Jo posted a Twitter photo of the pair with their arms around each other, captioning it: “Fantastic Xmas dinner with our leader @henrybolton”.
Challenged on Facebook about her relationship with Bolton, Jo insisted: “He was in an unhappy marriage and was estranged from his wife.”
But Tatiana remains baffled at the supposed speed of the romance, adding: “How is it possible that within two weeks of first seeing this woman he has left his family of 11 years?
“There were no warning signs, nothing. In all his texts and calls before he came home for Christmas he was just like normal – a perfectly loving husband and father. He would call me ‘Love’, just like he always did.
“Not only has this woman helped destroy our family, she is bragging about it on social media with no respect for the people who are hurting.
“I keep asking myself whether this is a dream, a nightmare. All I want is to wake up from it and for none of what has happened to be true.
“I’m just so grateful and thankful to both my family and his family and all my friends for being so incredibly supportive at this horrendous time.”
She was in our flat, had her foot on our stool... those little details hurt TATIANA BOLTON ON HER AGONY AT MISTRESS PICS