NO further action is to be taken against the former owner of a string of Cumbrian curry houses who was accused of bigamy.

Fazlur Rahman, 42, who ran Indian restaurants in Ambleside, Sedbergh, Bowness, Workington, Cockermouth and Keswick, was charged with going through a form of marriage with a woman from Cockermouth when he still had a wife he had married in Bangladesh.

But at Carlisle Crown Court the prosecution applied to have the case laid on the court file.

Prosecuting counsel Tim Evans told the court that “to all intents and purposes that constitutes an end to these proceedings.”

The prosecution’s decision came two days after Judge Peter Hughes QC raised doubts over whether the case should ever go to trial.

He said it raised complex legal issues of international law which were probably not best suited to a criminal court.

After being told of Mr Evans’s decision, the judge remarked: “I think that is an appropriate course.”

After the hearing Mr Evans said the case raised issues of how far Bangladeshi or Sharia marriage laws applied in this country.

He said it arose from two marriage ceremonies Mr Rahman had gone through with his English partner Jill Gregg.

He originally went though a Moslem marriage ceremony with her which was not recognised under English law.

Then – after going through a marriage ceremony with another woman in Bangladesh, which was recognised in Britain – he returned to this country and allegedly went through a recognised civil ceremony with Ms Gregg after claiming that he had not been married to anyone else.

Since being charged with bigamy Mr Rahman has been living in a flat attached to the Emperor of India restaurant, in the middle of Bowness.

In August a judge rejected a plea that his bail conditions should be relaxed so that he could go to Lanzarote, where Ms Gregg lives with their two children.