Rat sponged off me
BRIDE Maria Guillen Garcia’s stomach lurched when she arrived at the register office – her groom was missing.
Maria was about to miss her slot to tie the knot with Tom Mccabe when he breathlessly burst in clutching a bouquet. He said: “I just had to get you some flowers.”
Seven years on, Maria discovered the real reason for the last minute jitters. The man she had known just nine months was already married.
Maria, £21,000 in debt after bankrolling Mccabe, said: “He’s a compulsive liar. Maybe he thought his wife and I would never find out about each other. Unfortunately for him, I’m not stupid.”
Mccabe, 51, said he had never been wed and he and ex of 14 years, Bridget O’connell, had not had kids.
But his lies were exposed when Maria helped him update his phone software.
She saw photos of his first family and found Bridget on Facebook. Maria, 47, learned they had not divorced and had a daughter, aged 23.
Police quizzed Mccabe in 2016 but he fled and was found in Hyde End, Bucks, earlier this year.
Last week, at North London’s Highbury Corner magistrates’ court, he admitted bigamy.
The court heard he originally claimed Bridget, who lives in Ireland, had told him they were divorced. They
wed in 1995 and split up in 2004. A date is to be fixed for sentencing. Bigamy carries up to seven years’ jail.
Support worker Maria said Mccabe, who she met through a lonely hearts ad in 2009, “seemed to be in a hurry to get married”.
Maria paid £2,500 for their August 2010 nuptials and £1,600 to have their marriage annulled. She said: “He said he loved me but I was his cash cow.”
Maria told the court: “I have been living a life with him for nearly seven years and he caused me to land in over £21,000 of debt, pushing me to get loan after loan, borrowing from the bank and my colleagues.
“Money he said was for a van, for certificates to do work and for a surveyor for a house he said he had bought.”
In 2013, unable to pay rent, they were evicted. Maria left him but he begged her to come back.
They gave it another go but she was suspicious as she had never met his family. In 2015, Maria Mccabe’s mobile phone needed a software update and Maria took it to work so a colleague could help.
When she confronted Mccabe about the photos he made excuses. Bridget, now 58, replied in 2016 to Maria’s Facebook message, saying: “If he married you he is a bigamist, as we are not divorced.”
Maria called the police and flew to Spain. She left a copy of her marriage certificate with the words “null and void” written across it, her wedding ring and a note which said: “I want you out by the time I get back.”
Last year she found happiness with new man Marco Lopez, 40, and has not ruled out getting married again.
He thought we’d never find out about each other.
I’m not stupid