My OAP hubby had TWO wives – cops busted him after he accidentally invited the same guests to both weddings
OPENING her front door early one morning, Patience Lucas was stunned to find two female police officers standing there.
Just over a month earlier, the then 21-year-old had married Randolph Edge, a man 35 years her senior – but now, their newly-wedded bliss was about to turn into a living nightmare.
“When they said Randy had been arrested for bigamy, I had to ask them what it meant – and they explained he was already married,” Patience, now 38, tells Fabulous exclusively as part of our My Life’s a Soap series.
“I remember sitting there unable to speak. It was like being trapped in a weird nightmare. The police officers kept asking if I was ok and if I knew, which of course I didn’t.
“I kept saying they must have got it wrong – but they hadn’t”
Randy was indeed already married when he exchanged vows with Patience – and his first wife, who he was secretly still seeing when supposedly ‘working away’, was installed in a house just 12 miles away.
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“I was shattered and broken,” says the home admin assistant and carer. “I trusted Randy and thought he was the love of my life. I felt ashamed even though I’d done nothing wrong – apart from fall in love.”
Patience was just 18 when she first met Randy, then 53, in May 2005 on a night out in Kings Lynn, Norfolk.
“He worked the door at a local pub. Everyone referred to him as ‘The Legend’. He was good with chat-up lines and had a bad boy reputation, so when I heard he liked me, I was flattered by the attention. I was young, silly and naive,” she says.
“I assumed he was single, Randy never contradicted me and we started dating. My friends and family said I was mad as he was old enough to be my grandfather, while others dubbed me a gold-digger. But I didn’t care – I was smitten.”
“I was living with my parents and Randy and I were dating. We’d see each other two or three times a week. He’d always play the gentleman and pick me up. We never went to his home.
Fallen for ‘The Legend’
“He proposed 12 months after we started dating. We were at our favourite pub and Randy asked me to marry him, presenting me with a gold ring with crystal styled diamond as the closing bell rang I said yes!
In June 2007, wearing a flowing white dress, Patience married Randy at the local register office in Kings Lynn. The happy couple celebrated with a disco and buffet reception for 60 guests at the nearby workman’s club, then spent a week honeymooning in Gran Canaria before setting up home in a two-bedroom council house. By then, Randy was working as a long-haul lorry driver, and would be away on trips for three-to-four days a week.
“For six weeks after our wedding, we were blissfully happy – and then the police came. They told me Randy was being charged at the police station, and when he reappeared, I went mad. I yelled and screamed, while he just sat there. He did say sorry – but didn’t even try to explain why he’d done it,” says Patience.
Heartbroken, she packed a bag and moved into her dad’s house.
“IRandy asked me to see his solicitor who told me all the details of the prosecution case. I learnt Randy had married another woman. They had married five years earlier. They lived in a house in Sutton Bridge, just 12 miles away,” she says.
“He was splitting his time between our homes. When I thought he was working, he was there.
I never met her.
“The police explained that he’d been rumbled by one of the guests at our wedding – who had also attended his first wedding. They’d tipped off the registrar, who then alerted the police.”
‘Guilty of bigamy’
“In the lead up to the court case I was back living at home. Randy was with his first wife. I’d get an occasional text or phone call from him asking if I was OK. When he called he appeared drunk or tipsy.
I felt mortified, ashamed and devastated. I spent a lot of time at home not wanting to be laughed at or have people pity me. I was a victim but I wanted to be dignified.
In February 2008 , Randy appeared at the Norwich Crown Court . According to Patience Randy asked her not to go. She was appalled to see a press pictures of him arriving hand in hand with his first wife.
“I really couldn’t face all the drama,” she says.
He was found guilty of bigamy – only escaping a prison sentence of up to seven years as both Patience and his first wife gave statements saying they’d forgiven him. Instead, he was sentenced to 100 hours community service and a supervision order.
Patience moved on… or did she?
“If I hadn’t found it in my heart to forgive, he’d have gone down, but I believed in second chances. I was gutted when I saw pictures in the newspaper of Randy arriving at court hand-in-hand with first wife, telling reporters outside he wanted to repair his marriage to her,” she says.
“Despite it all, I still felt he was my first love. I felt so ashamed about it all. I just wanted to hide from the world.”
With her marriage declared void, Patience tried to move on with her life. She started working as admin and care assist and tried to learn to be single again.
Then, in 2009 Randy and Patience started talking again and he promised he’d divorce his other wife
Back together with bigamist ex
Patience was now renting a private three-bedroom house and took Randy in as a lodger in 2010.
“Rather than hating him, I wanted to be the better person and remain friends, but within six months , we were an item again. People told me I was mad but I was still searching for a happy ending. I felt like if Randy and I reconciled, then in some way all the pain would have been worthwhile ,” she says.
By then, however, Randy had been diagnosed with diabetes, severe COPD – a condition involving constriction of the airways and difficulty breathing – and cardiovascular disease, and within three years, Patience had become his full-time carer.
“During the next eight years, I was his nurse as his health rapidly deteriorated. The physical side of our relationship ended, but we became proper friends. He needed someone to look after him and I knew being kind was better than hating.”
Tragic death – but no regrets
“Randy wouldn’t talk about being married to us both at the same time. I was trying to move forward. I know many would have wanted more of explanation. I wanted to forget. By now I was nursing a sick man and the past was in the past.
Then on the 18th of December 2018 Patience heard Randy scream her name from the bathroom.
“I rushed in, and he was lying on the floor clutching his chest. I did everything I could. I gave him CPR. I was screaming for help. I was there when he died within minutes of calling my name.,” she says.
By the time the ambulance had arrived Randy, then 63, had passed away.
“I was heartbroken. I watched with tears streaming down my face as his body was taken away. He was my first true love and after caring for him I felt an outpouring of sadness.
“Many people thought I was stupid or too forgiving or that Randy was using me. But I’m glad I was there for him – even after everything.”
But a happy ending
Patience had given up on her fairytale ending when, six months after Randy’s January 2019 funeral she met Jonny Lucas, now 40, in June 2019 when she advertised a caravan cooker for sale on Facebook marketplace.
Jonny got in touch to buy it, and when he arrived at her door, she realised it was the first boy she’d ever kissed aged 14 at school.
“I was so shocked,” says Patience. “Jonny’s family had moved away and we’d lost touch – and suddenly here he was!
“I invited him in for a cuppa, which turned into dinner – and he never really left. When I told him all about Randy, he didn’t judge me or make me feel like a fool, and I knew instinctively he was the right man for me. Only 18 months older than me, he was kind, caring – and wasn’t married to another woman, which for me was a big bonus!”
Within six months, Jonny proposed.
“On Christmas Day 2019, he made a heart of rose petals, then got down on one knee with the ring and asked me to be his wife. I burst into tears and accepted,” she says.
“Our wedding day, the 17th of July 2021 was magical. We had 40 guests and my family surprised us both by having marquees set up in my uncle’s garden for the reception. It was the best day of my life.”
The couple welcomed their first son Louie, now two, in November 2021, followed by now sixteen-month-old Ronnie, September 2022. .
“Jonny is an amazing husband and a doting dad. Everyone says we are the perfect couple. I know Jonny is the real and true love of my life I was meant to find,” she says.
“Marrying a bigamist, finding out he had a secret wife, then caring for him before he died was a nightmare – but I still don’t hate Randy for what he put me through. I got through it with kindness and forgiveness, and now – at last – I’ve got the happy ending I always dreamed of.