A husbnand who campaigned to stop his Eastern European wife from being deported from Britain is now trying to get her KICKED OUT of the country. Two years ago, Gary Gibbons from Tipton went public to claim his heart would be broken if the Home Office ruled his Ukrainian spouse Nelya could not stay in the UK. But now the 46 year-old is pleading with immigration officers to send the mother of his three-year-old daughter Elizabeth back to her homeland after a bitter marriage split. He claims their wedding in 2000 was a sham because Nelya, 43, never loved him and only married him to stay in the UK. But last night Nelya, now living in Ruislip, Middlesex, hit back at Gary's allegations and said that he was harassing her and had been violent towards her. "Everything he says is lies," she said. "I have reported him to the police and he's on bail. He is not supposed to contact me or anyone who has anything to do with me. "I have been in the UK for seven years and I have a child here. I am permitted to stay here. "He has been paranoid ever since the Home Office sent a letter, telling him that he may have to leave the country to be with me. "I am fed up with him and I want him to leave me alone." Gary, an unemployed courier who now lives in Cornwall, said the pair met at a Russian evening a friend had invited him to attend in London's Hammersmith. Six months later they were married. "We just got chatting during the evening, held at a dance hall, and we swapped phone numbers," he said. "A few weeks later, Nelya rang me and I travelled down to London to meet her. That is where she was living at the time. "During the following few months we continued to meet on a regular basis. I would go to London or she would come up to Tipton. "We married at the Akrill Memorial Methodist Church and lived in Tipton together. Nelya worked as a supply teacher, giving lessons in French. We soon had Elizabeth and I stayed home to look after her." When the Home Office looked into Mrs Gibbons' legal status in Britain, Gary enlisted the help of the media to stop his wife from being deported. He said immigration officials did not believe the couple were truly in love and that they were told they could both move to the Ukraine 'at public expense'. Two years later he now declares: "I don't think she ever loved me. She just married me so that she could stay in the country. "Nelya has got a 19 year-old son from a previous relationship in London and she was always going to visit him. "Looking back, I think she was seeing other men behind my back. She kept taunting me with photographs of her with different men. Eventually we moved to London. I followed her down there to make her happy, but now I want a divorce. I want her to go back to Ukraine and I will look after Elizabeth here." A Home Office spokesman said: "We have been very pro-active in cracking down on illegal marriages lately. "A sham marriage requires both parties to be aware of the deception from the beginning, which does not seem to be the case here. "Asylum cases can be considered on compassionate grounds and if an asylum-seeker has a child born in the UK this is taken into consideration." A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police has confirmed that Mr Gibbons was charged with common assault on December 17, 2004. fionnuala_bourke@mrn.co.uk | 
