A man who confessed to bigamy has been sentenced to community work and supervision.
Auckland man Rodney Peach, 52, pleaded guilty in January to bigamy and using a forged marriage certificate.
He handed himself into police, unprompted and confessed, two days after his second marriage.
Manukau District Court Judge John Moses said at sentencing today the maximum penalty for bigamy was seven years if the second wife did not know he was already married and two years if she did.
He said he would deal with Peach on the second, lesser, basis.
Peach married Trisha Oeti on December 17 last year while still married to his wife Tina Peach.
Two days later Peach walked into the Howick police station and said he wished to confess to a crime, the judge said.
Peach said he had been to see a lawyer and wanted to hand over his fake marriage certificate.
He told police he had used his brother's details to get an original copy of a marriage certificate which he then used a computer to doctor.
Peach also admitted to using a friend's dissolution of marriage certificate so he could copy the format of a Family Court dissolution.
The judge said the previous cases of bigamy he was guided by were varied. One case from 1955 saw a man jailed for six months but another case from a few years ago ended with the man being convicted and discharged.
First wife Tina Peach wrote a letter to the court in support of her husband saying he had been a good husband for the 28 years they were together.
There were also letters from Peach' employers, children and brothers supporting him.
The judge said Peach "made some very poor decisions" but to his credit he had owned up and was addressing the considerable stress he was under at the time.
He sentenced Peach to nine months supervision and 120 hours of community work.
Court documents said Peach married Oeti in front of her family and friends knowing that he was not in a position to do so, given he was still legally married to his first wife.
Tina Peach lives in Australia and it's understood she had no idea her husband had remarried.
Peach told police the situation had come about partly due to pressure from his new wife's family and their religious beliefs.
Oeti was ''fully aware'' of his situation, he said.
Official documents showed that Peach legally separated from his first wife on August 28, 2011. However, he said the marriage ''had been over in the eyes of God long before the official date listed''.
He said the separation left him feeling depressed and suicidal.
However, things improved when Oeti, who he'd meet at work in 2006, returned from Samoa around August last year.
The Department of Internal Affairs was not aware of the deception.
The judge said Peach had a criminal history but those charges were from 35 years ago.
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