Paul Phibbs ended up in court after he failed to wait for his divorce to be finalised before remarrying
A bigamist who went ahead with an unlawful second marriage because he didn’t want to lose money he had spent on the wedding has avoided jail.
Paul Phibbs had not seen his first wife Kim Hee Jung for 15 years when he and his partner Kerry Hudson decided they wanted to get married.
His solicitors initiated divorce proceedings and, thinking it would be a straight forward process, Phibbs and Miss Hudson booked their wedding and reception at a plush hotel.
Although he received a decree nisi – the document saying the court does not see any reason why you cannot divorce – the decree absolute, which is the final document confirming divorce, had not come through by the time of the wedding in November 2009.
The self-employed carpenter’s divorce wasn’t finalised until February 2011, 14 month after he had married again at the Harbour Hotel in his home town of Christchurch, Dorset.
The 48-year-old was later charged with bigamy and admitted the charge at Poole Magistrates’ Court this week.
Magistrates told him they had considered a prison sentence, but decided instead to give him a 12-month community order with a curfew for four weeks, 100 hours of unpaid work and £170 costs.
A court heard the illegal marriage came to light after Phibbs split up from his second wife, Ms Hudson, and she commenced divorce proceedings.
Phibbs’s second wife, Kerry Hudson, said she was unaware his first marriage was not dissolved
She presented her marriage certificate and her husband’s decree absolute to her solicitor who noticed the discrepancy.
Phibbs told police his second wife had been aware the decree absolute had not come through but the couple agreed to get married anyway because everything was booked and paid for.
But the court heard she denied this and told police she didn’t know his previous marriage had not been dissolved.
Selina Goddard, defending, said: ‘This came completely out of the blue for him last year. This is some ten years after the offence when police contacted him.
‘He separated from his first wife Kim and hadn’t seen her for 15 years. He hadn’t made any attempts to commence divorce until he started a new relationship and then tried to track down his estranged wife.
‘It was his understanding the proceedings were pretty much through.
He avoided jail after admitting bigamy but avoided jail after saying he though the divorce was ‘pretty much through’
Ms Goddard added: ‘He thought it was a matter of months, because of the desertion, and thought the decree absolute was imminent so he and the future Mrs Phibbs set a new date for marriage.
‘He made efforts to chase it up but in the end they had organised a wedding and put down a lot of money which wasn’t recoverable, so they decided to press ahead, taking the somewhat ambivalent view that it would only be a few weeks.
‘It’s not a case where there has been any deception, all parties knew, there was not a sham marriage of any kind.
‘He hadn’t really contemplated how serious it would be, he was more thinking about the costs of the wedding.’