Woman with 5 hubbies
LONDON: A former glamour model who married five men without divorcing any of them was given a suspended prison sentence by a British judge who said she had undermined the institution of marriage.
During the past 13 years, a soldier, a bank worker, a website designer, a train guard and a salesman all believed they were legally married to Emily Horne, who said she liked 'making people happy'.
Only the first wedding, in 1996, was legal. Horne, who maintains that 'the thing I'm guilty of most is falling in love', is in the process of divorcing her first husband and has pledged to send back all five wedding rings.
Horne, 30, had married four of the men by the age of 23, changing her name on marriage certificates to avoid detection, a court in Manchester heard.
Judge Mushtaq Khokhar on Monday described Horne, who had acted in adult movies, as a 'manipulative woman'.
But the judge said he decided not to jail her because she had made progress in the last six months since being prescribed medication for a personality disorder.
He told Horne, who has bipolar disorder: 'It undermines the institution of marriage when someone contracts marriages at the drop of a hat.'
She was handed a 10-month suspended prison sentence.
'I am feeling great. I have been vindicated,' Horne, who has a new partner, said outside court. She added: 'I think next time I should get a divorce.'
Born in York, she met her first and only genuine husband, Mr Paul Rigby, at school and married him in 1996, shortly after her 18th birthday.
Horne left him after five months and in 1999 married a bank worker, Mr Sean Cunningham. She then met website designer Chris Barrett and married him in 2000. Husband No. 4, in 2002, was Mr James Matthews, a train guard. After he discovered her past, the police were alerted, and she was jailed for six months.
Last month she pleaded guilty to bigamy in marrying her fifth husband Ashley Baker, a salesman, in 2007. She was then working in a massage parlour.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
