SNOOKER HERO MURPHY AND £100 ESCORT

May 3 2009 Daniel Jones

Champ turns to 36C Abigayle after wife split

Snooker star Shaun Murphy bedded an old pal not realising she was a £100-an-hour escort girl.

The 2005 world champion, who was playing in this year's semifinals last night, turned to sexy Abigayle Tadeo as his marriage to wife Clare crumbled.

Committed Christian Murphy, 26, and brunette Abigayle, 25, first met ten years ago at a religious youth group in Irthlingborough, Northants.

Abigayle, who now advertises herself as a busty 36C, said: "We had drifted apart but I would watch the news and see how he was getting on.

"Shaun got in touch with me out of the blue last year, through Facebook, and we exchanged numbers.

"He kept sending suggestive text messages describing what he wanted to do to me.

"He'd call me from his hotel room while he was on tour and he would send me saucy pictures of himself.

"He wanted me to send him pictures of me but I don't think I ever did. He said it was over with Clare. He said it was sad but there was no love there anymore. I was married at the time but was having problems and Shaun recommended a good divorce lawyer so that we could be together."

Abigayle, who poses online in a daring red basque and works under the name Skye for a Bedford escort agency, went on: "Shaun promised me the world. He talked of us having a future together."

Used

She said they had sex at a hotel room in Kettering, Northants, last November.

Abigayle recalled: "He asked if I was going to put the saucy conversations we'd had into practice.

I did and we had sex.

"It wasn't amazing and I'd had better but I really liked Shaun.

"He said he loved me and that he wanted to be with me. Shaun even joked, 'it's only taken me ten years to get you into bed'.

"He started talking about having children and getting married and said he would ring me. But then I didn't hear anything from him for days, which was unusual. Before that he was contacting me every day.

"Eventually I spoke to him online and he said he'd been trying to get the ball rolling with his divorce and didn't want any contact with me. I feel he used me for sex."

Abigayle admitted their relationship also ran into problems when world No3 player Murphy discovered for the first time that she worked in the sex trade.

Their romp came after he walked out on Clare, 32 - cruelly leaving a note on the stairs of their £400,000 home in Rotherham, South Yorks. Clare, who met Murphy in an online Christian chatroom, is now divorcing him on the grounds of adultery with Abigayle.

The couple had famously pledged to abstain from sex before their 2005 marriage.

Now it is claimed furious Clare threatened to serve divorce papers on Murphy during the world championships, being held at the the famous Crucible in Sheffield.

The former medical rep said: "People see Shaun as this fine, upstanding moral sportsman - but that's not the way he's been treating me.

"He's changed his mobile number and email address and has even blocked me on Facebook."

After his title win in 2005 Murphy, said: "Snooker is just my job. Clare is what I live for."

Yesterday Abigayle confirmed she had sex for money but insisted Murphy did not know. His manager Brandon Parker said he slept with Abigail but did not have sex with her.

daniel.jones@ people.co.uk