For the last five years, Colin Harrison has been leading a life which was described in court yesterday as "a hellish nightmare of his own making". Harrison who is 34, met his first wife, Eileen, eight years ago. They soon had two children and Harrison seemed to settle down in a Bristol suburb to a "solid, respectable life as a devoted husband and father".
His only apparent problem was his job as a long-distance lorry driver. This took him away for almost half of every month on long drives up to the northeast of England, particularly around the Newcastle area. However, as the court learned, after three years of marriage, Harrison met another woman and fell in love with her. She was a young widow, Mrs. Claudia Paisley, whose husband had died in a tragic motorcar accident two years earlier. Harrison married her as well, and began to lead a double life. The first was in his home in Bristol, and the second was in the village of Ormley, near Newcastle, with his second wife. Neither of the two women knew of each other's existence. Harrison had two more children in his first marriage, the last of which, a boy, was born nine months ago. His second wife, bore him a daughter around the same time. She already had two children from her earlier marriage.
In order to support his two families, Harrison had to work almost every hour of the day and night. In addition to his main job he took on a number of part-time jobs in both Bristol and Ormley. It became so bad that several months ago he suffered a complete physical and mental collapse. One of his doctors, to whom Harrison confessed everything, advised him to give himself up and then try to make a completely fresh start in life. Harrison took the advice. Yesterday, after pleading guilty to bigamy, he was given a two-year jail sentence, suspended for four years. The court heard that his first wife is now seeking a divorce.
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