Ex-model married fifth husband without divorcing other four

A former glamour model who has admitted that she married her fifth husband without divorcing her previous four faces a possible prison sentence. Emily Horne, 31, has already served six months in jail for serial bigamy. Horne, of Kingswinford, West Midlands, confessed her latest bigamous union to her most recent husband as they travelled to Scotland for their honeymoon.

Once described by a judge as a “very predatory female”, Horne appeared before Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, where she admitted marrying Ashley Baker, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in September 2007. Horne had changed her name on marriage certificates frequently to avoid detection.

She was married to her first husband, Paul Rigby, in York in December 1996, the day after her 18th birthday. Mr Rigby, a soldier who had been at school with Horne and who is her only legal husband, was posted abroad and returned home five months later, to find she had left him. Horne married husband No 2, Sean Cunningham, a bank worker, in Leeds in February 1999, but soon abandoned him and moved in with his friend Simon Thorpe, who proposed to her. She wanted a register office wedding but he wanted a traditional church wedding.



While living with Mr Thorpe she met the man who was to become her third husband, Chris Barratt, a website designer from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, whom she married in December 2000. West Yorkshire police were alerted to her series of marriages soon after, and she was cautioned for two offences of bigamy in August 2001. Horne left Mr Barratt after three months and later that year met James Matthews, a rail guard, on a train. The couple married a month later in Ipswich. She told him that she had been married twice before but that both marriages had been annulled. A week after the wedding she confessed that she was still married to her third husband.

Mr Matthews tipped off the police after Horne walked out on him, after three months, for his best friend. Horne, originally from York, later met Mr Baker who lives in Chadderton, near Oldham. She was jailed by Ipswich Crown Court in January 2004 when a psychiatric report suggested she suffered from a personality disorder that made her alternate between periods of excitement and depression. Judge Peter Thompson told her on that occasion: “You are an attractive young woman and you might be described as a very predatory female.”

But he added: “It is important that the public knows that marriage is upheld as an institution by the courts. Marriage is still an important component of our social fabric and it deserves respect.” After a brief hearing yesterday, the case was adjourned until July 27 for sentencing and the preparation of pre-sentence reports, including an assessment by a psychiatrist on the possible effects of a prison term.