Never the bridesmaid, Emily's always the bride

Former model accused of fourth bigamist marriage faces seven years in prison

Emily Horne has always liked attending weddings – especially her own.

Yesterday the 30-year-old former glamour model appeared in court charged with bigamy – for the fourth time. She has been married five times but only her first, 13 years ago, was legal. Since then she has married four other men, but has never bothered to divorce her original husband.

Now she faces seven years in prison after pleading guilty to her latest illegal marriage. Ashley Baker only found out his new wife was already spoken for when she confessed on their honeymoon.

It is a pattern Horne, who worked as an escort and appeared in adult movies under the name of Amilieannya Carmichael, has adopted since she was 18. Just a day after her 18th birthday, in December 1996, she married Paul Rigby, a soldier, in York. But, when he was posted away, the pair lost touch and failed to get a divorce. In 1999 she married Sean Cunningham, 33, at Leeds register office. She used a false name, calling herself Emily Lecont.

That marriage failed and in December 2000 she married husband number three; Chris Barratt, 21, after meeting him on a bus. She used the name Emily Horne again and West Yorkshire Police were later alerted. She was cautioned for two offences of bigamy in August 2001. When, in 2002, her marriage to Mr Barratt ended, naturally without a divorce, she moved to Ipswich. She met James Matthews, 34, on a train on her way there and quickly moved into his home, proposed to him by text message and married him four weeks after they met.

A week later she admitted she was still "married" to her third, second and first husbands. She left him and moved in with one of his friends, but Mr Matthews reported her to the police. In 2004 she was sentenced to six months in prison. The judge described her as "a very predatory female...a woman exploiting a man".

On 14 September 2007, she married Mr Baker in a civil ceremony at Chadderton town hall. Yesterday she appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester to plead guilty to a charge of bigamy. Horne, who lives in the West Midlands, was bailed with conditions that forbid her from contacting Mr Baker. She will be sentenced on 27 July.

Horne said before the hearing in Manchester that she was receiving treatment for bi-polar disorder. She said: "I had a bit of a wild youth and I did some glamour modelling to help pay my way as a student. I will not be the first person to have done that. I genuinely regret causing any hurt to the men I married but I am trying to put it all behind me now."

Yesterday the facts of the most recent case were not opened during the brief hearing and the matter was adjourned for the preparation of reports.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar agreed to bail and told Horne to appear back at the same court for sentence next month.