A bigamist who wed his 16-year-old stepdaughter while married to her mum – and then had children with both of them – has admitted it was a ‘weird’ situation.John Ingram, 69, changed his name so he could marry the schoolgirl in 1988, in a ceremony attended by his own wife.
Twisted Ingram then fathered several children with the mum and daughter but many of them were unaware of who their dad was.His web of lies were only discovered in February 2020 – 32 years after the bigamy.
Facing a lengthy jail sentence, Ingram was let off with just a two-year community order and £450 costs.
Speaking from his terraced home in Sheerness, Kent, he boasted to Mail Online that avoiding jail actually saved the taxpayer money.
He denied he had benefited at all from the strange set-up – and claimed it was all for the good of his stepdaughter.Ingram told police his wife did not know he had fathered kids with her daughter.
He told MailOnline: ‘I’m lucky I did not go to prison.Ingram fathered several children with his wife and her daughter but many of them were unaware of who their dad was.
‘Bigomy seems to be bigger in America. But it can be anything from a suspended sentence to a couple of years.
‘I took a bag (to court). I feel lucky. If I had then social services would have had to pick up the bill for looking after my wife. She has Alzheimer’s and is also disabled.’Not sending me to prison has saved the taxpayer money.’
When asked about the situation as a whole, he said: ‘It’s weird.’
He was asked if he was concerned that what he had done had harmed his stepdaughter and family.
He was also asked why he did it.He added: ‘The misunderstanding, when my step-daughter left school back in the 80s, you automatically had to go on a training scheme.
‘But because she was pregnant we were able to manipulate the situation, where instead of going on to the Youth Training Scheme, she was able to finish early and went straight on to benefits.’
Trying to justify the strange set-up, he said: ‘It made it sound like I benefited.
‘I did it to benefit her.’He revealed in detail how he kept the whole sordid situation a secret from his family.
He added: ‘The only people who knew were my wife and my mum.
‘It all came out in February 2020. There were a lot of questions. I answered them, truthfully.
‘And we worked around it.’The family talk to me. They have forgiven me.
‘I have been to prison once and that was back in 1985. It’s one of them things, if it happens, it happens.’
When asked if he had a message to the judge, he said: ‘I did thank everyone on the day.’The court heard that the ‘manipulative’ Ingram has fathered several children with both women, though many of the youngsters had grown up unaware of who their father was.It was not until February 2020 that Ingram was arrested for his deceptive lifestyle.
He admitted bigamy at a hearing in May last year, but was spared jail by a judge who said that, though he’d ‘exploited and abused’ the trust of his family, he had only deceived the institution of marriage.
The court heard that Ingram, of Sheerness in Kent, changed his name by deed poll so he could marry again at the age of 32, and signed his marriage certificate with his step-daughter as ‘Neil Carr’.
The same surname was also used by his wife when she signed as a witness on the same marital document.When interviewed by police, he confessed and claimed the motive for the illegal marriage had been financial.
Ingram pleaded guilty to bigamy when he first appeared at Medway Magistrates’ Court in May last year.
However, due to the seriousness of the offence – which carries a maximum penalty of up to seven years in prison – the case was committed to the crown court for sentencing.
At that hearing on Monday last week, prosecutor Jeremy Kingsford said Ingram had married his wife in January 1983, before illegally wedding his step-daughter five years later.Referring to a police interview following his arrest, Mr Kingsford said: ‘He admitted the offence and claimed he had married to allow [his step-daughter] to be entitled to additional government benefits.
‘He confirmed he had changed his name by deed poll to do this.
‘He told police that [his wife] was present for the wedding ceremony and that when he married [the step-daughter] she was 16 and the relationship was consensual.’
Ingram also admitted in his police interview that his legal wife did not know that he was the biological father. 