A FOUR times married Kendal woman is today behind bars after being jailed for 90 days for bigamy.

Serial bride Lynda Selvam, 44, went a wedding too far when she married her last husband, as she was already married to her third husband. Selvam used her decree absolute from her second husband - the lawyer who had handled her first divorce - to dupe a registrar into believing she could marry a doctor.

The mother-of-two was on Tuesday jailed for 90 days by District Judge Paul Firth, sitting at Blackpool Magistrates Court.

Selvam - a £45,000 a year pharma-ceuticals representative - admitted bigamy. As she was taken to the cells, her children wept in the public gallery.

The court heard about Selvam's life after she left her family council house home in Kendal to become the first of her family to go to university.

She first married Allan Bargh - the father of her son and daughter - and together they built up a property portfolio in Cumbria and a village in Southern Spain. They divorced and then, in August 2000, Selvam married Paul Anthony, the Kendal-based solicitor who had dealt with her divorce case.

Prosecutor Malcolm Cartwright told the court that the marriage collapsed and ended in divorce because of the solicitor's adultery. She went on to meet and fall in love with a man called Christopher Scholler. They "married" in a register office on Gibraltar in April 2001, even though she had not been granted her decree absolute from the marriage to Paul Anthony. When that was granted she married Scholler again, four months later, at Kendal.

The judge was told the Gibraltar authorities were aware the island wedding was almost certainly bigamous but had decided not to take any action.

Just four weeks after the Kendal ceremony Lynda Scholler met NHS doctor Dr Karrupiah Selvam.

Mr Cartwright said: "She presented herself to the doctor as a single mother-of-two. She was besotted by him and an intense relationship developed in which Dr Selvam wanted to marry her.

"She even explained away the presence of a man called Chris - Christopher Scholler - in her home as a house guest and mentor to her son, Martyn."

The marriage to Dr Selvam was also to be in Gibraltar, and on the island she used the decree absolute papers from her marriage to Paul Anthony to convince a registrar she was free to take her vows with the doctor. The wedding took place in April, 2002.

The couple moved into D'Urton Place on D'Urton Lane, in Preston. The court was told that when that marriage fell apart this year Dr Selvam had been going through papers which revealed to him that she had married him bigamously. He went to the police.

Lynda Selvam - she still uses the surname - was arrested and, in interview, told officers that each of her marriages had been physically consummated.

Her lawyer Greg Earnshaw told the court: "My client comes from a humble background and has carved out for herself a successful career. Dr Selvam said he loved her and she was in love with him. She did not want to lose the doctor and accepted his proposal of marriage. Her belief is that Dr Selvam knew she was still married to Mr Scholler. This offence happened at a difficult time in her life and one of her most weak moments.

"This was no immigration scam. The doctor was entitled to be in the UK and indeed still works in the NHS. Neither was it for financial gain, as my client owns property in Kendal where she is now living, and has an interest in Spanish property bought by her first husband."

Jailing her, Judge Firth said: "This sort of deception is unique and serious. It attacks the integrity of marriage. You have been married several times and are an intelligent woman who knows what the laws of marriage are. You deliberately went out to deceive."

Paul Anthony declined to comment.