Millionairess widow Christine Ince was trying to find love again when she started dating younger Gambian man, Mustapha Jabbai.
Christine Ince, 59, spent a year getting to know Mustapha Jabbai, 36, before agreeing to marry him.
The woman, who is a mother of three, believed Mustapha Jabbai intentions were honourable because he had a permanent job in the UK and had never asked her about her wealth.
However, shortly after their second anniversary, Mustapha Jabbai walked out of her £850,000 five-bedroom detached home in the picturesque village of Tilbrook, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.
Hours later, Christine Ince discovered their wedding certificate and other documents Mustapha Jabbai would need to stay in the UK were missing.
Mustapha Jabbai then filed for divorce and is demanding the millionairess pay him maintenance and a one-off separation payment and set him up with a pension.
In a witness statement for the divorce hearing, Christine Ince claims the marriage was a “sham” so “he could get an indefinite leave to remain visa”.
Christine Ince goes on to accuse Mustapha Jabbai of bigamy and claims the woman he introduced to her as his sister is actually his Gambian wife Yama Jabbai.
She believes Mustapha Jabbai walked out on her just after their two-year anniversary because he had spent long enough married to her to be granted the right to stay in Britain.
“At the time, I believed he cared for me,” Christine Ince said in her statement.
“I have been made ill by Mustapha’s betrayal of my trust, by his lies and deceit. I feel violated as if I have been raped.
“It is distressing for me to have lived with someone and to find out I actually know nothing about them.
“He has used me and my commitment to him to gain entry into the UK and [obtain] the legal right to stay here.”
Christine Ince, a former management accountant, married Bill Ince in 1977 in Chertsey, Surrey.
They went on to have three children – Elizabeth, now 31, Charlotte, 29, and Robert, 25.
Bill Ince, a joint-owner of a major tyre company, collapsed at their home in 2003 and died six weeks later, at the age of 63.
Christine Ince went on to have breast cancer but has since recovered. After a tough three years, friends persuaded her to sign up to popular dating website Plenty of Fish.
The widow met Mustapha Jabbai, who was working for PC World in Reading, on the site and the pair enjoyed a series of dates.
Christine Ince said: “Mustapha was different to all the other men I had met through the dating site.
“He didn’t try to get me into bed straight away and he didn’t ask me about how much money I had, which some men did.
“He wasn’t a stunning man by any means but he seemed kind and caring. I know there are guys around who see me as a target because of my wealth.
“So I checked Mustapha out in lots of ways and with lots of questions. But he never faltered and was so plausible.”
After a year the couple travelled to the city of Brikama in Gambia where they married in front of Mustapha Jabbai’s family and friends.
But when they returned to the UK, he began to demand money from his new wife, Christine Ince claims.
She also says she travelled to the visa office in Croydon where she paid £1,000 for his permanent visa.
During their two-year marriage, Christine Ince spent £30,000 on him which he has not repaid, she alleges.
“After he walked out, I realized what had happened and I felt so foolish and gullible,” Christine Ince said.
“But now I am angry because he is trying to get money from me through the divorce courts. It feels like I am on trial even though I’m the one that has been duped.”
Mustapha Jabbai left Christine Ince’s home in March 2010, saying he was going to the dentist. He never returned.
Two months before this, Mustapha Jabbai won the right to permanently stay in the UK.
Mustapha Jabbai, who now lives in Coventry, has denied the accusations in a letter sent by his legal firm Hammon Solicitors to Christine Ince.
The most recent statistics show that in 2008, 115 Gambians were granted citizenship after marrying UK nationals.
UK Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “We are considering requiring couples to complete a five-year probation to prove their marriage is genuine before they are eligible for settlement.
“We will always seek to revoke the settlement rights of any foreign national who has used deception to obtain it.”
