A sensible support care worker who never thought she would fall victim to an immigration marriage scam has revealed how she was conned by a love rat she met on holiday.
Julie Dag, now 50, from Bournemouth, was left heartbroken and down £20,000 after falling for local musician Lamin Sidibeh while on holiday in The Gambia in West Africa in 2007.
At the time she was newly single at 43 and thought she had found true love with Lamin, 29.
With three failed marriages behind her, she said she was susceptible to his charms.
‘He was physically very attractive, athletic, attentive but I was very cautious that this was a holiday romance,’ she told Channel 5 documentary Holiday Love Rats.
‘He made me feel like I was unique. After three failed marriages I was getting old.’
Although Julie returned to Britain, the pair kept in touch and 12 months later she booked another trip back to The Gambia – for her wedding in 2008.
‘The romance didn’t last long. We spent the whole of our honeymoon filling in visa applications,’ she said.
The set up home together in Bournemouth but Julie said she had her doubts about her husband’s claims of being a builder when he erected her shed.
‘It was upside down and full of gaps,’ she said.
Her husband managed to get a job in a fish and chip shop but Julie said he didn’t spend his free time with her.
‘He was going out with his friends drinking and I grew suspicious that he was cheating.
‘He would be coming in at 2am or 3am in the morning and he told me to stop phoning him.
‘I told him he was my husband and I had a right to know where you are.’
However, her world began falling apart two months after he was granted indefinite leave to stay in the UK.
‘One day he came home with a bunch of flowers and told me he was leaving,’ said Julie.
‘I told him to pack his things and get out.’
Weeks later, Julie said she was contacted by another English woman who said her marriage wasn’t legal as he was already married.
‘She told me they were already married and that she had tried to get him a visa so many times.
‘He had hit the jackpot with me because I had a house and a job and I could afford to keep him.
‘The whole thing he came for was a visa, payout and an escape. He got what he wanted and it wasn’t me.’
Now Julie said she can’t believe she was such a fool to let him use her.
The show also features Kim Sow, 58, from Dover, who was conned out of £50,000 by her Senegalese husband in an immigration marriage scam.
She appeared on yesterday’s This Morning to warn other women to avoid her fate.
She was captivated by Laye, who she met in a London nightclub, and his promises that they would be a big, happy family when she married him and she became step-mother to his three children.
She only discovered after he left her with his British passport secured that he was already married to the mother of his children who was caring for them in Senegal.
