An English woman suspicious about her husband's past hired a private detective to look into it.
After her own wedding ceremony last year, Wendy Lee became suspicious that her husband, David Jones, was already married.
To relieve her concerns, she hired a detective who soon found that Jones had been married — for 13 years.
After the revelation, Lee called Essex Police who launched their own investigation into the 48-year-old.
Jones was arrested on suspicion of bigamy.
During a police interview, Jones admitted the offense and accepted that he should have divorced his first wife before remarrying.
Jones, of Southend in Essex, England, appeared before magistrates after the court issued a warrant for his arrest because he had failed to turn up at a previous hearing.
He admitted the charge of "entering a form of marriage during the life of your wife."
According to a spokesman in the Crown Prosecution Service, which according to its website is the main "prosecuting authority" in England and Wales, Jones' relationship with his first wife had deteriorated but it was unclear whether he had a relationship with both women at the same time.
Jones received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and also was ordered to carry out 100 hours of volunteer work.
He was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of about $117 and pay about $124 to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Bigamy — the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another — is illegal in the United Kingdom.
The penalty for committing bigamy is a prison term up to seven years, a fine or both.
According to the latest Home Office statistics, there were 31 reports of bigamy from 2011-2012 and 44 reports in 2010-2011. The Home Office leads investigations into crime policy, immigration and passports and counter-terrorism.
Under U.K. law, a second marriage when one partner is already married is considered void. [USA]
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