Heartless husband dumped his wife in a CARE HOME so he could marry his new Russian partner
HE was jailed for 20 months at Birmingham Crown Court in August 2015 after the court heard he took an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude
A CRUEL man left his wife in a care home and told friends she had died so he could marry another woman.
The love rat from Birmingham added to the number of bigamists which have resulted in the city named as a blackspot for multiple marriage crime in the past four years.
It was the worst spot outside of London for bigamy since 2014.
Five offences were recorded in the city, with only Croydon having more with seven, and this included the heartless case of Tony Foley.
He told friends his sick wife Maxine had died five years before she actually did, but he had actually left her in a care home.
He cut off contact with Maxine, claiming he had cancer and was living in Germany. In fact he was at the couple’s Birmingham bungalow with his new wife.
Foley then illegally married a Russian bride, on the same day he had married Maxine 20 years previously.
When Maxine died in 2014 of a degenerative illness, he failed to even send a card to her funeral, despite having taken £30,000 of her benefits to clear his own debts and fund a trip to Russia where he met his next wife.
Foley, then aged 58, of Stones Green, Erdington, was jailed for 20 months at Birmingham Crown Court in August 2015.
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He admitted charges of bigamy and obtaining benefits by deception. The court heard he took an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude to Maxine after she went into a care home in 2006.
It transpired he married lover Tamara Kudinova at Birmingham Register Office on October 8, 2008 – the date he and Maxine tied the knot in 1988.
A shocked friend told the Daily Mail after he was sentenced: “He told me five or six years ago that Maxine had died – and obviously I didn’t know he was lying.
“He never said she was in a nursing home that whole time.
“He seemed quite depressed so I had no reason not to accept it.”
West Midlands Police recorded a total of seven bigamy offences between April 2012 and June 2016.
The other two took place in Coventry and Wolverhampton.
The London boroughs of Wandsworth and Southwark also recorded five offences each.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 54 bigamy cases during the past four-and-a-quarter years – far more than any other force.
Bigamy is the act of having two or more husbands or wives at the same time.
It is illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
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