My best friend stole my wife and my identity to cover for his criminal past

England: Imagine your best mate ­running off with your wife and then ­stealing your identity to cover up a sordid past as a sex offender.

Dad-of-two Martyn Foster can barely believe that’s what’s happened to him.

He had heard nothing from wife Susan for 25 years after she vanished with friend Michael Evans, leaving behind two small daughters Rebecca, six, and three-year-old Alison.

She told Martyn she was going to a party in 1988 and never came home.

Instead she fled with her lover three weeks before he was due to stand trial for ­abusing an eight-year-old girl.

Police placed Susan on a missing ­persons list but it took almost a quarter of a century to track the pair down.

Both had changed their names to Evans by deed poll – he was originally Michael Kime – and the paedophile had used Martyn’s details to get a passport.

This month justice finally caught up with the couple as they admitted ­conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at Lincoln Crown Court.

Evans was also found guilty of the ten historical sex offences he went on the run to escape. Both will be sentenced in January and Susan is currently on bail.

Michael was remanded until sentencing and was told by the judge he faces jail.

Martyn, 59, said: “What Susan’s done is disgusting. How can a mother leave two little girls to run off with a man ­facing sex charges against a child?

"She missed every birthday, Christmas and ­special moment in the girls’ lives.

“She didn’t even send them a letter to let them know if she was alive or dead. It was just cruel.

“Evans is low-life. Absolute scum. I’m just relieved Susan didn’t take our girls with her.”

Martyn is still mystified today as to why she ran off.

He said: “When she fell pregnant by accident with Rebecca in 1981 we were happy to get married. I was working as a car mechanic and money was tight but she seemed happy.”

The couple’s social life was limited to meeting up with Michael and his partner Elaine for drinks. Martyn had known Michael for years after forging a ­friendship over pints in their local.

When he was accused of abusing a young girl from the age of eight in 1988, it was Martyn who supported him.

Martyn, of Grantham, Lincs, said: “Michael seemed devastated. He said he hadn’t done anything wrong and I naively believed him at the time.

“He was so low we even had him round for tea a few times to cheer him up. Looking back, he must have been ­carrying on with Susan then.”

Martyn believes the pair “panicked” into fleeing as Michael’s court date drew closer. When she disappeared he worried “something bad” had happened to her.

He said: “Susan said she wanted to go to a friend’s party down the street. I said I’d go to the pub instead and we booked a babysitter.

“I got home late and let the sitter go. I waited for hours but there was no sign of Susan and I eventually fell asleep.

“The next day she still wasn’t home so I thought something must be seriously wrong. I was really worried.

“I called all her friends and everyone who had been at the party but nobody had seen her.”

It was only when he called Elaine that Martyn became suspicious. She told him Michael had left her and when Martyn checked the wardrobe some of his wife’s clothes had gone.

He also found piles of unpaid bills, including an eviction notice from their ­council home, stuffed into drawers.

Martyn said: “I felt foolish and ­betrayed. There were piles of rent, utility and catalogue bills just hidden away in drawers. She was probably saving the money to run off with Michael.”

Martyn then faced the heart-­breaking task of telling his daughters their mum wasn’t coming home.

He said: “They were very upset but obviously didn’t really understand ­because they were so young.

“They both became very ­quiet and reserved. Becky in particular took it very hard. At one point she thought Susan must have been dead because she never got in touch.”

Martyn struggled on and continued to work while his mother Irene helped look after the children.

When he eventually divorced Susan in her absence, he married second wife Carol, 63, when Rebecca was 12 and Alison nine.

Martyn said: “It was tough raising two daughters on my own before I met Carol. My mum was great and helped with after school, dinners and at weekends but obviously, being girls, the ­person they really needed was their mother.

“They accepted Carol but I think they also resented her because she wasn’t Susan.

“They had been forced to be so independent so young they both left home at 15. Since then our relationships haven’t always been easy.

“I think things would have been very different had their mum been around.”

Meanwhile, as the girls yearned for their mum, Susan and Michael had created new identities for themselves, working on farms in Kent picking fruit.

Michael had copies of Martyn’s birth and marriage certificates and used them to get a passport to travel to Crete, where the couple picked olives. Even now, Martyn doesn’t know exactly when his identity was stolen.

When Martyn applied for a new passport in 2007, he was told he already had one.

He was ­invited to the passport office where he was shown a photo linked with a ­passport in his name – and it was Michael.

He then heard nothing until last year when police told him Susan had been found in Margate and Michael had been arrested.

Martyn and his daughters were stunned by the news. “It was just strange,” he said. “Suddenly Susan existed again and we all just looked at each other surprised, not ­knowing what to say.”

Since then Rebecca has been in touch with her mother, who still lives in Kent.

Martyn said: “Becky is establishing a relationship with Susan and it’s one she doesn’t talk to me about, but I think Alison’s only spoken to her mum once or twice on the phone.

“I don’t think Susan deserves a relationship with either girl, but they are grown women and can make their own decisions.”

He added: “Becky asked her mum why she left them and she just said ‘because I loved Michael’.

"After 25 years that’s all she could say. Unbelievably selfish.”

While some men might feel the need to contact Susan and quiz her on why she left, Martyn added: “I never want to speak to her or set eyes on her again.

“All I need to know is that she sacrificed her family for a child molester and went on the run.