Wife Stumbles on Facebook Photos of Husband's Secret Second Wedding

A wife discovered her husband of 17 years had secretly married another woman in a lavish £45,000 ceremony  - after she saw the new couple kissing on Facebook.Yvonne Gibney, 55, had been married to globe-trotting oil contractor Maurice Gibney for the best part of two decades. 

But it was only when she checked Facebook and saw photographs of Mr Gibney, 49, dressed in a wedding suit and cuddling teacher Suzanne Prudhoe, that she learned that her husband - and father to her son - had married another woman.

Mailonline reports that,she learned that his family  - who were told that Mr and Mrs Gibney were divorced - had also attended the wedding held at the British embassy in the Arab state, and that her mother-in-law had walked her husband down the aisle.

The new wife

The father-of-three, who lives and works as a senior contractor for Oman Oil, pleaded guilty to bigamy at Wirral Magistrates' Court. He was handed a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years.

In an emotional statement read out in court, Mrs Gibney said:

 'I loved him unconditionally and believed that love was reciprocated. I simply don't have the words to effectively convey the pain and hurt and sense of betrayal. I have to accept that my husband was unfaithful emotionally and physically for a prolonged period of time.'

 Mrs Gibney told the court that she had been in 'daily' contact with her husband in the lead up to the illegal marriage and that he had exchanged 11 emails with her discussing bed linen - the day before his bigamous wedding.

When she tried to contact him on the big day, he was to have been 'unwell' but later claimed he had been cycling ..

I have tried to understand Maurice's actions. Let alone planning it and going to such extremes. Maurice gave the impression that he was fully committed to our marriage,''I found out about the wedding by a few comments on Facebook that led through to other comments. I clicked on Suzanne Prudhoe's profile and saw as her Facebook profile her wedding day, kissing my husband in their wedding finery.

I had no knowledge of Suzanne Prudhoe's existence or relationship with my husband. It appeared she announced her engagement to my husband on Facebook in May 2012. To initiate into that bigamous marriage, my whole marriage became worthless.

'If he had wanted a divorce we could have started proceedings years ago. All the pain inflicted was completely unnecessary. I feel the intensity could only be seen as deliberate intent to harm his family.'

Earlier Mrs Gibney told the court she had met her husband - who she said has a tax-free salary of £85k when she was deployed to Nigeria almost two decades ago.