It is a familiar story: British grandmother on holiday falls for young Gambian man and marries him only for the relationship to collapse.
The difference in this case, however, is that the African husband is the one left dreaming about what might have been.
Mary Cotnoir, 59, realised that 25-year-old waiter Demba Sanneh had wooed her purely because he wanted a visa to live in the UK.
So she returned home without him, and is refusing to divorce him so he cannot seek another British bride.
‘I plan to stay married to this man so he can’t do what he’s done to me to another woman,’ said the nurse from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
‘If he wants to come to the UK, he’d need my co-operation as his wife for his visa, and I won’t be helping him at all. He broke my heart and I’ll never forgive him.’
Mother-of-five Mrs Sanneh – despite the episode, she prefers to be known by her married name – met her husband-to-be while visiting the West African country for two weeks in January this year.
In an echo of the movie Shirley Valentine about a smitten holidaymaker, she quickly fell for the 6ft 6in waiter.
‘He was very athletic – I thought he was absolutely gorgeous,’ she said. ‘It did cross my mind that he might only want to be with me because I was British, but those fears evaporated when we were together.’
Mrs Sanneh, whose previous marriage ended in divorce, added: ‘I’d been single for 20 years and this man made me feel more alive than I had in years. On the second night he told me he was falling in love with me and we slept together soon after that.
‘He seemed so sincere. He told me he despised the kind of men who saw English women as their ticket into Britain.’
The couple had planned to marry in the UK but Mr Sanneh’s application for a tourist visa was refused.
Instead, his bride returned to Gambia in September and paid £500 to be married in a traditional civil ceremony.
She said: ‘It was a magical day. Demba’s entire family were there – about 50 of them – and there were drummers and dancing.
‘I wore a lovely white dress and Demba told me how beautiful I looked. It truly was the happiest day of my life.’
Within hours of the wedding, however, she says her husband’s behaviour changed.
‘Demba started demanding money for him and his family. He became moody and withdrawn. He refused to sleep with me. In fact, he stopped being affectionate altogether.’
By the time Mrs Sanneh was due to return home eight days later, she knew the marriage was over.
‘He didn’t even give me a kiss goodbye at the airport,’ she said.
‘Right up until I left he was asking me for money. In the end I gave him the last of my foreign notes just to keep him quiet.’
She added: ‘None of my children attended the wedding because I didn’t tell anyone apart from my youngest son. He was always against it – he’s the same age as Demba and he couldn’t understand why a young man would want to be with a woman my age.’
The most recent Home Office statistics show that in 2008 115 Gambians were granted British citizenship after marrying UK nationals.
Yesterday Mr Sanneh was still insisting his intentions were honourable. On the phone from Gambia, he said: ‘We got married as I want to be her husband. I am still her husband. I know Mary is in the UK but I would like our marriage to work out.’
But his bride said: ‘I feel so stupid and humiliated. Although I’m lucky I didn’t part with lots of cash – I gave him a few hundred pounds for driving lessons and bought him a £400 laptop and a mobile – it doesn’t lessen the pain.
‘I’d planned to retire and spend the rest of my life with Demba, living for half the year in Gambia and half in the UK, but that dream is now shattered.
‘He’s hurt me more than I could ever imagine.’
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