Wife discovers her husband of 17 years has secretly married another woman

Mr Gibney and wife Yvonne Gibney

                      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.

The mother-of-two soon discovered that her husband had not only married again during an expensive ceremony surrounded by palm trees in Oman - but that he had actually tied the knot 11 months earlier.

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.

She then hunted around for more information about the lavish ceremony, before going to police with evidence of his bigamous marriage.

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 revealed that in the run-up to the bigamous wedding, her husband had even cheated on her at Christmas when she had flown out to see him in Oman.

He falsely claimed he had to go away 'on business' - but instead he flew back to the the UK to be with Miss Prudhoe.

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.'