Bride discovers her husband is a paedophile after he downloaded indecent images on their HONEYMOON

A woman who discovered she was married to a convicted paedophile just a week after their wedding is still trying to divorce him five years later. Jazmin Cullen, 24, from Carshalton, Surrey, was enjoying her honeymoon in Brighton with new husband Jason Cullen when her grandmother found sick child abuse photographs on a laptop, which Cullen had been using.

She then found out that Cullen, 31, a former ambulance call operator, had also lied to her about his identity and criminal past. 

Two years earlier he had been jailed for possessing 8,000 child abuse images, including some graded the worst possible, and exchanging them with fellow paedophiles.

He had served half of a two-year prison sentence and met Jazmin shortly after being released.

But she knew nothing of his sickening secret until her grandmother found the disgusting child images on her laptop and realised Cullen had downloaded them.

The pair reported Cullen - whose real name is Jason Hodson - and he was hauled back to court and given a community order. But Jazmin has found herself unable to divorce Cullen because he is refusing to cooperate with legal proceedings, dragging out the official end to their marriage.

Cullen had denied 20 counts of distributing images and 24 counts of possession but was convicted by a jury and jailed for two years.He was released on licence after a year and then changed his name via deed poll, claiming he had received death threats.

She said: 'If it wasn't for the fact that his pictures were in articles I found online, I would never have believed he had this double life. I was completely dumbfounded.'

Cullen pleaded guilty to possessing the 20 indecent images found on his grandmother-in-law's laptop at Sutton Magistrates' Court in April 2011. The court heard he had allegedly been abused aged 16, but no one was ever arrested, charged or prosecuted. After the hearing, having already spent 14 weeks in custody since his arrest, he was given an 18-month community order and fined £85.

'Seeing him convicted was a mix of relief, complete devastation and disbelief,' Jazmin said.  'I did love him completely, and my wedding day was a lovely and happy day for me at the time, but now thinking of him is very distressing.

'Divorcing him will be the final step in moving on but so far he has denied me that.' It took Jazmin a number of years to pluck up the courage to contact a solicitor to start divorce proceedings which she began in early 2013.

 

But according to Jazmin, Cullen has continued to change his name and whereabouts, making divorcing him impossible.

She said: 'In many ways I have been able to put it in my past but being married to him is a constant reminder. Every time I receive a letter, or see my name, it is distressing.'

She is now looking into getting a decree nisi, on the grounds they have lived apart for long enough.

'At one point I wasn't sure if there was any hope out there, but now I'm doing really well now in my life,' she added.