Mirror.co.uk - 24 August 2005
SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT MY RUNAWAY HUSBAND
ONE morning in July, Lesley's husband Tony van den Berg drove her to work, kissed her goodbye and told her that he
loved her.
Nine months after their wonderful honeymoon in Malta, Lesley still counted herself lucky - even though her dream man
did spend hours staring into the computer at home.
But before that day was over her life was to be cruelly shattered.
After dropping her off, Tony returned home, packed a bag and walked out. The romantic charmer who had promised to be
with her for ever had left for good.
Now Tony, 44, is thought to be in Canada, while distraught Lesley tries to pick up the pieces of her wrecked life.
"This man is the ultimate runaway love rat," she says of the Dutchman she married last October. "I was his fourth
wife, but I've since learnt that I wasn't the first to receive this kind of treatment.
"He'd been going on dates throughout our time together, trying to get back with his third wife and even joined an
internet dating agency on my credit card. He told me he and his third wife split by mutual agreement - but he deserted
her without warning too.
"Now he has saddled me with a huge mortgage and I can't meet the repayments alone. Eventually, I and my four daughters
will be thrown out of our home.
"No doubt Tony is now grooming some poor, unsuspecting woman to become the fifth Mrs van den Berg. Well, I'm speaking
out as a warning to women everywhere. Stay away from Tony van den Berg - he's nothing but trouble."
Lesley's fate was sealed one night five years ago when she threw a party and a neighbour invited a tall, charming
stranger with blue eyes and blond hair.
He was attentive, sensitive and engaging and they seemed to have a lot in common. Each had suffered miserable
marriages and had all but given up on love.
"Tony was so caring," says Lesley, 43. "We talked all night and then we went on a couple of dates. He told me he just
wanted to be friends as he couldn't cope with anything serious at that time.
But their relationship quickly developed
"It was wonderful. I never expected to find love at my age, but we had such a glorious time. We went to the cinema,
out for dinner and he got on really well with the girls. He was always holding my hand, always telling me he loved me,
always wanting a kiss. In the morning he'd bring me tea in bed."
Tony got on well with her daughters, Nicole, 19, Barbara, 17, Gwen, 15, and Karen, 10, and persuaded Lesley they
should buy their council house in Largs, Ayrshire.
"I didn't want to at first," she says. "We'd be saddled with a huge mortgage and I was worried he'd leave. But Tony
reassured me that he was staying for ever and even proposed.
"He said: 'This is my fourth marriage. And last.'" On October 18 last year they married at Largs register office in a
Scottish-themed wedding. "It was a wonderful day," says Lesley. "I was so happy. Tony wore a kilt and we had deep red
roses, thistles and pink tulips." Tony's parents, his only guests, made the trip from Holland and afterwards the
couple enjoyed a romantic honeymoon in Malta.
But soon after their return Tony started working longer hours at his customer relations job and became obsessed with
their home computer.
"It was like an addiction," says Lesley. "He'd stay up all night, laughing and chatting away to people online, then
come into the living-room and sit slumped across the sofa, not speaking to me.
"He said it was his hobby, but it was his life. I asked him after one row why he'd bothered to marry me if he didn't
want to share his life with me. He went off sex completely and hardly showed me any affection. He lay around in his
pyjamas all day, unwashed, unshaved, drinking bucketloads of coffee and smoking fags."
But Lesley had no idea Tony was secretly planning his getaway until the afternoon of July 14, when daughter Gwen
showed up at her work.
"She was in a terrible state. She told me that when Tony arrived home he went straight on to the computer. At 3pm he
had a shower and a shave and put on smart clothes. Then he walked out of the door."
Lesley found a note on her bed: "Had enough. Will contact you in a few days to return car and collect the rest of my
stuff, Tony."
Beside the note were his mobile phone sim card and his wedding ring.
"I didn't know what he'd had enough of," says Lesley. "We'd had our ups and downs, but I was a good wife and thought
that my husband loved me. I found that half of his clothes and his passport were missing and collapsed in tears."
She checked the computer, but Tony had taken the hard drive to cover his tracks. Then, hidden away in a cupboard, she
found a notebook crammed full of women's names and numbers.
"I was disgusted - but desperate for answers, so I rang a few," she says. "It turned out that he'd used my Visa card
to join an internet dating agency behind my back and had been arranging to meet women the whole time we were married.
"I rang his work and found he'd been taking afternoons off so he could meet his dates. I felt totally crushed."
As she struggled to cope with it all, she found an unlikely ally in Tony's ex-wife Kelly.
"I found her number and I rang and told her the whole sorry story," she says. "She wasn't at all shocked. She was a
lovely person - not a bit like Tony had described.
"Nothing he'd told me about her was true. If it hadn't been for Kelly's mum coming up the road at the exact moment
Tony was leaving with his packed cases he would have made a clean getaway. He said he was going to Holland as his
grandfather had died." A week after Tony had walked out on Lesley, the police found her Ford Mondeo at Glasgow airport
car park. The only clues to his whereabouts were cash withdrawals at banks in America and a flight to Canada.
As she waits for news, Lesley is desperately trying to keep her head above water.
Tony was the main bread-winner and she is two months behind on her mortgage payments. Since the house is in both their
names, he needs to sign it over to her so she can sell it before it is repossessed.
"We'll end up in a council house miles away," she says. "The only good thing that's come out of this is I've made a
really good friend in Kelly. We talk on the phone and we're arranging to meet later this year." Kelly, a 41-year-old
mother of six, says: "He's done it to me, he's done it to her. I'm sure he's going to do it again. I spent a year
crying over what he did to me. No more. I think people need to know about Tony - he's scum."
Lesley adds: "None of my marriage was real. My only hope now is to warn others of his sick, destructive patterns. I'm
sorry for the little ones he left behind.
"He has a three-year-old in Sheffield from his second marriage and a two-year-old in America he has never met. He left
their pictures here.
"How could anyone do that? He has no heart. I am angry at him, but I have a small amount of pity too - because in the
end he will have nothing."