High Court Annuls 32-Year Marriage for Bigamy After Woman's Investigation Reveals Deceased Father's Double Marriage

A woman’s relentless search for the truth has resulted in her deceased father’s 32-year marriage to a woman being annulled by the High Court for bigamy.

Marlene Stuart spent two years searching St Vincent for the man who she discovered was also married to her stepmother Coral Blackman-Stuart.

That man, Ean Hamblett, married Blackman in St Vincent on February 14, 1992, before she left him and returned to Barbados and married Carlton Stuart on March 9, 1992.

After locating Hamblett through a private investigator and securing his affidavit, Stuart produced it to the court and on February 23, High Court judge Justice Fiona Hinds upheld the application and ordered that the marriage between Carlton Wingrove Stuart and Coral Anita Stuart née Blackman, “solemnised

on the 9th day of March 1992 in the island of Barbados, be declared null and void under Section 31 of the Family Law Act and Section 5 of the Marriage Act”.

The ruling was made in absentia of Blackman who resides in New Jersey, United States, but who the court noted “failed to enter an appearance or file a defence to the claim”.

Carlton died in 2018 in New York.

A relieved but overjoyed Stuart told a Nation team that the ruling had essentially put a halt to the sale of two million-dollar properties which her father owned in the US and also would allow his six children to have a stake in his estate.

She recalled that her father, whom she described as “wealthy”, met Blackman, who was 22 years his junior, while she was walking along Baxters Road and instantly fell in love with her. However, she said it was back in 2018 when her father passed away that a close family member confided in her that Blackman may not have been legally married to him since she also had a husband in St Vincent.

“He told me not to let her get her hands on my father’s properties,” Stuart said. “I didn’t pay it no mind at first, but then I met one of her family members and they told me, yes, that she’s married to a Vincentian but they can’t remember his last name.”

Stuart flew to St Vincent in 2022, seeking the husband. However, the trip was unsuccessful as she still did not have a surname.

So she returned to Barbados and decided to hire a private investigator in St Vincent.

That paid off. The investigator located Hamblett, as well as the marriage certificate and the legal process of getting the marriage annulled began in earnest.