Back with a vengeance

Miranda Johnson was arrested after taking revenge on her cheating husband. They had been married for 15 years and had what Miranda thought was a good relationship. But when Daniel, 40, fell in love with a woman at work, Miranda's world fell apart.

Blinded with rage, she locked their three children in the car and drove to the house he had moved into with his mistress.

Miranda - whose name has been changed to protect her children - hammered on the front door yelling obscenities and hurled a wheel brace through the lounge window. The police were called and had to handcuff her because she refused to leave her children.

Looking back, Miranda, who lives in Aston, near Witney, realises she shouldn't have done what she did - with or without her children watching - but felt so betrayed. She said: "My husband went to a firm's do one Friday night in London and said he was staying over with 'John' from work. The next day he phoned saying John's children had overslept so he would be back a little later.

"When he got back I questioned him about the age of John's children as ours don't oversleep that late. That's when he said we needed to talk," said Miranda, 40. "He was very guilty and I guessed something was up. He told me he'd met a woman at work and he liked her very much. It came as a bolt out of the blue. Our wedding anniversary was shortly before all this and he had taken me to Rome. We had a good relationship and he was a devoted dad."

But Daniel was bored with his relationship with Miranda and, in hindsight, she now realises she always went out of her way to please him.

"Thinking about it, I don't think it was my fault but I basically turned myself into a doormat. I did things to please him and I will never make that mistake again.

"He said we were Mr and Mrs Average, we had three kids and there was no excitement in our life. His new woman was a career woman, a size 10, had long, blonde hair and was like a Barbie doll."

Miranda couldn't believe her ears when Daniel told her not to worry and that everything would be OK as long as he could continue to see the woman twice a week and at weekends.

"He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. I just went to the bedroom and started sobbing. There was my ten-year-old daughter with holes in her shoes and me in secondhand clothing while Daniel spent £45 on a teddy bear for his new woman.

"I discovered they'd finish work early and he would take her for meals before coming home. The night he told me about the affair, he slept like a baby. I kicked him out of bed as everything started to sink in."

Daniel moved to a hotel and then told Miranda he had decided to come home. "Then I came home early a couple of days later to find him packing his bags and off he went. I was quite calm and his parting shot to me was, 'This is the way I want to remember you.'

"My world ended and I didn't know what to do. The children looked after me and they were brilliant. I just went to pieces."

The final crunch came when Daniel agreed to see Miranda to talk things through, but then cancelled the arrangement.

"I did 1471 to get their phone number, called Daniel and heard the woman in the background asking what I wanted this time.

"I said I was going there if he wasn't coming here. I knew roughly where they lived in Wallingford. I picked up the children, put them in the car and off we went.

"When we arrived in Wallingford, Daniel was waiting at the traffic lights and started banging on the roof of the car telling me to let him in."

She eventually found the address with Daniel sprinting up to the front door to protect his girlfriend.

"I dumped the car, locked the kids inside and started yelling while thumping on their front door. It was total rage and I was out of control.

"I had a wheel brace and if she had come out of the house, I admit I would have planted it in her brain."

As it was, Miranda smashed the front window with the wheel brace and people in the street shouted at her for making such a commotion.

"Daniel yelled at his girlfriend to call the police and when they arrived, I refused to leave without the kids so they got me on the ground, handcuffed me and took me to the police station." She was let off with a caution after Daniel's girlfriend reluctantly dropped the charges.

"Before this I had only ever had one parking ticket in my life. It was just like being a criminal in Prisoner Cell Block H and although I was not ashamed, I have never been back to Wallingford since."

But Miranda feels bad that her children had to sit in the car and watch the scene. "I thought someone would say I was a bad mother and classed as unstable."

The couple divorced a year ago and Daniel married his girlfriend in September.

Miranda now lives with her kids in a three-bed rented house in Aston, which she is hoping to buy. Her ex-husband rarely sees the children and won't tell them where he lives, although Miranda believes it's in the Nottingham area.

"I remember Daniel saying to me: 'Men go off with other women all the time, why do you have to be the one who makes a fuss?'

"But in fairness to him, I don't think he was deliberately horrible. To this day he still thinks it was me who was unreasonable and that he is the one being punished."

She pulled herself together and got help after spotting an advert about a local Relate course for people who have ended a relationship.

"They knew how angry I was and the course was a lifesaver and gave me a lot of hope. I don't want to be on my own for the rest of my days. It would be nice to find someone who thought I was special and take me out but I will never marry again.

"I will never forgive him for what he did. I was a wreck and it was one of the worst times of my life but we are much better off without him."

Now she has a new life and is picking up the pieces.

Miranda now works for a detective agency where she has to comfort the wives or girlfriends who have found out their partner is cheating on them.

Anyone who would like to get in touch with her for more information about the detective agency, William Louch & Co, should write to us addressing the letter to: Miranda Johnson, c/o Fiona Tarrant, Women's Editor, Oxford Mail. Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0EJ and we will pass all letters on.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.