Tamworth civil partnership bride faces benefit fraud charge

Jun 20 2010 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

WHEN Jayne Hudson married Sandra Green in a lavish lesbian wedding ceremony, the lovebirds pledged it would be forever.

The couple, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, made national headlines as one of the first civil partnerships in Britain in 2006.

But their marriage is now at the centre of an investigation by the Department for Work and Pension – after Jayne was charged with defrauding the public purse of £21,468.

She is alleged to have falsely claimed income support and housing benefits after stating she was a single parent living on her own.

The couple married at the Moat House hotel in Tamworth in the one of the first civil partnerships in the Midlands. They enjoyed a Gay Pride-themed wedding in the colours of the rainbow in front of 140 family and friends.

Jayne, 40, was driven to the venue in a New York-style police car, while Sandra turned up in stretch Hummer limousine.

The couple first met while working for a local taxi company where Jayne was a base operator and Sandra was a driver.

They married just five months after civil partnerships became a reality in Britain after a long campaign to make them legal.

Speaking at the time, Sandra said: “We are classing it as a wedding, we’re not using the civil partnership title – we want it to be traditional.”

Sandra recalled the exact moment she first discovered Jayne’s true feelings. “It was Christmas Day, four minutes past midnight to be precise,’’ she recalled.

‘‘Jayne came round for a coffee and just said: ‘Sit down, there’s something I want to tell you’. She blurted out: ‘I’m madly in love with you. Will you marry me?’

“I was gobsmacked. It was a bolt out of the blue. But I said ‘Yes!’ and literally moved in that night and we’ve never looked back.

‘‘She is what I’ve looked for all my life, she’s my spine. I can’t say more than that... I just love her to bits.”

Jayne added: “We were already friends and just before Christmas 2004 the relationships we were in dissolved. Sandra has made me realise feelings I’ve had for a long time and always thought were wrong. Now I can be who I want to be, I’ve found my soulmate.

“People shouldn’t expect gay couples to just sneak in and out of the register office. That’s fine if that’s what the couple wants. But we wanted to show our love publicly to all our friends and to the whole world that this is who we are.”

Sandra had joked that some of her relatives still thought she might change her mind about being gay. She said: “I feel that the wedding will prove to them that I am serious, this is my partner.

‘‘I do love her dearly and I’m not going anywhere.”

Jayne Hudson was unavailable for comment last night, but the Sunday Mercury understands that she vehemently denies the charges.

She is due to appear at Tamworth Magistrates’ Court on June 29.