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WELSH ex-con Simon Melia has
spoken for the first time about the fling with an au pair that
nearly wrecked his marriage to aristocrat Lady Alice Douglas.
And Simon, who had an affair
with his children's Polish au pair, Magda, has revealed he
considered killing himself with a drug binge when devastated Alice
threw him out of their Snowdonia home.
Simon, 33, and Lady Alice, who
met at a drama workshop while he was serving a nine-year prison
stretch for armed robbery, hired 20-year-old Magda to help look
after their two children Hero, five, and three-year-old Tybalt.
Alice, a successful writer and
theatre director and the daughter of the 12th Marquis of
Queensbury, was the main breadwinner in the household and keen
climber Simon admits he embarked on the affair to wrest back some
of the power he felt he lacked in their marriage.
Speaking frankly about the fling
on Channel 4's Cutting Edge programme, to be shown next week,
Alice admits she saw all the warning signs - and chose to ignore
them.
She said: "One of my
friends had said to me, 'You don't have to worry about Simon going
off with her, she's like a pitbull'. She was quite a morose,
grumpy girl. I knew she had a crush on Simon and I just thought it
was really sweet.
"She couldn't cook, not
anything. Even if you asked her to cook some toast she was
incapable. But suddenly she was cooking meals for Simon and I
thought that was odd.
"When we were in the
hot-tub one night she was watching from her bedroom window and
came down to us. She started to stop us spending private time
together."
During the day, however, when
Alice was at work, Simon and Magda were growing closer and closer,
and Simon was feeling increasingly isolated from his wife.
He said: "As I spent more
time with Magda, it was an easier relationship than I had with
Alice at the time.
"We didn't have the
worries, the history, we didn't have any arguments.
"More and more it was Magda
I had the fun with, who wanted the same things as me, who joked
about the same things as me and Alice became more alienated.
"I was aware that Magda was
using the situation but it was impossible to ignore it when she
was walking round in a towel or just a dressing gown. After three
months it was obvious if there was an opportunity something would
occur."
Simon, also a former
lance-corporal with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, says he felt more
and more neglected by Alice, who spent much of her time with the
children.
He said: "There are two
double beds and the children and Alice were in one and I was in
the other. We were quite hostile towards each other and I felt
angry.
"One day while Alice was at
work, I started to have a drink and the obvious happened. It was
very much hidden away, very clandestine.
"I thought it was necessary
because I was regaining some of my power. I was moving myself back
to the man I wanted to be. If I couldn't have control financially,
professionally or socially, I thought I could have control in the
bedroom. It was a way of making myself feel useful, needed and
wanted."
Lady Alice admits she was aware
there was some kind of attraction between the two - but didn't
worry because she thought Simon would never reciprocate Magda's
lust.
But she was devastated when she
discovered Simon had indeed been sleeping with Magda.
She said: "I thought I
heard a noise in Magda's room so I went up to check. I hadn't been
up there for ages and it was an absolute mess. I saw a climbing
magazine with Simon's writing on it and realised what had
happened.
"I was in complete shock. I
absolutely couldn't believe it. I just thought in that moment that
my marriage had gone."
Alice confronted Simon and,
after he eventually admitted an affair, asked him to leave.
Simon, a former drug addict,
said the old familiar feelings of failure came flooding back.
He said: "I had the same
feeling as when I'd made all the other stupid mistakes in my life.
A feeling of wanting to be in control and strong overwhelmed me
and I went to get Magda and took her with me. We stayed in a
B&B."
Alice admitted: "It never
occurred to me that he would pick her up too and he was incredibly
spiteful when he rang me, saying he had a beautiful 20-year-old
girlfriend and she was going to be a huge part in his life and his
children's lives.
"I felt devastated and the
most incredible rage.
"He humiliated me in front
of her, around the kids, and that's all really hard."
But the fling was doomed to
failure. Simon was ashamed of walking out on his wife and kids -
just as his own father had done - and he still loved Alice
desperately.
He said: "I'd done the one
thing that I swore I would never do. I did what my father did and
I was going to find it hard to live with myself. I was still
desperately in love with Alice. I'd lost my children, my wife, my
home. I bartered with myself that I would give it some time and if
it didn't work. I was going to do what I always planned for the
end - which was drugs and oblivion."
The affair had lasted barely 21
days.
Six weeks later, after much
soul-searching, Lady Alice allowed the man who had betrayed her
back into their home, a converted chapel in Capel Curig.
The children missed him and, as
a way of earning money, she paid him a salary to look after the
kids.
She said: "There are parts
of every day when things are just as they've always been.
"When I look at the
children at home I think I can't take that away.
"He loves them
unconditionally and you can't replace that.
"We've been through so much
together and we know each other inside out."
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