Selina Hinkson, 48, left her London home to join 20-year-old shop worker Nizar Ben Mabrouk and converted to the Muslim faith after they struck up a relationship on Facebook.
The pair planned to leave Tunisia and return to the UK when Nizar passed a UK citizenship test.
But he failed his English language exam weeks after their marriage – and ruthlessly abandoned Selina during the chaotic days of the Arab Spring.
With no money to pay for a flight home and ties with her British family broken, the mother-of-two says she lived rough and survived by begging.
Selina was eventually deported and now lives in a homeless shelter in London, her life in ruins.
She said: “My story serves as a cautionary tale to other women who may be in a foreign age-gap relationship.
“It’s easy to get swept away in the moment. These men are so good at wooing youand making you feel like the only woman on earth.
“In reality, they’re using you as a meal ticket to get to the UK.
“As the old saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
“My kids were too young at the time to understand why their mum wasn’t there for them. Guilt and a sense of loss eat me up every day.”
Selina first made contact with Nizar via Facebook in 2010.
She was 44, more than twice his age, and had two children, Natasha, then 12 , and Tyrone, then 13.
Selina recalled: “At first I just thought it was a bit of fun. The messages were cute and endearing, not pushy or sleazy. His English wasn’t very good so we’d just chat about what we were up to.
“I’d tell him about my job as an NHS nurse and what the kids had been doing. He would tell me about his two jobs, running a boutique fashion store and an internet café.”
Selina had been divorced three times after marriages to British men failed – most recently in 2009. Now she was hopeful that Nizar was the real thing.
Her sister Wendy, 47, warned her about him and questioned his intentions. But Selina insists that she saw no signs he was using her.
She said: “He never asked for a penny from me. He started to send gifts, like flowers and sometimes clothes from his shop. I never suspected anything.”
As Selina’s feelings for Nizar grew, they began chatting regularly by phone and he revealed he would like to marry a British woman.
“He would propose nearly every time we spoke on the phone,” she said.
“I was flattered, because he was gorgeous. But I would laugh it off – I had a job, kids and a life in the UK. How would we make it work?”
But in September 2010, Nizar invited Selina and her children to visit him in his home town of Douz, Tunisia, and paid for their accommodation.
She was on sick leave due to stress from her job as a Health Care Assistant at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in West London, and decided it was time to put a face to Nizar’s name.
Selina recalled: “That trip was amazing. I felt so attached to him, like I’d known him all my life. It didn’t matter that he was so young, he was sexy, passionate and caring.”
Selina agreed to be Nizar’s wife and to convert to Islam. In December 2010, she left the children in the care of her sister in Birmingham and returned to Tunisia.
She and Nizar married in a Muslim ceremony on Christmas Eve 2010.
But Selina said their plan to return to Britain failed within a month, when it turned out her new husband did not have the levels of English needed to secure a UK visa.
After that, his attitude changed. She recalled: “It was a blow. His English wasn’t great but I had assumed he would pass the test.
“When he didn’t, his mood quickly turned ugly. Suddenly he was short-tempered and aggressive – not the charming guy I’d fallen for. He started talking about joining the army.
“I kept telling him we were married and he couldn’t just abandon me but he wasn’t interested.”
That week, violent protests started to break out in Tunisia as people revolted against the government in the Arab Spring of 2011.
“When the revolution started Nizar went off and joined the army,” Selina continued. “I cried and begged him to stay but he wouldn’t.”
The chaotic situation in the North African country knocked out public transport, leaving Selina unable to make the ten-hour drive to the capital Tunis for a pre-booked flight home.
She had left her credit cards at home and suddenly found herself penniless. Selina said: “I was desperate to speak to my sister and kids but I had no phone and no money for a new one.
“I couldn’t contact my employers to explain and I had no savings.”
With Nizar gone, she became homeless. Frightened and alone, she slept rough on a beach for weeks.
Then in early March 2011 she hitched a ride to Tunis and contacted British Embassy officials.
They told Selina her marriage was legitimate and she had a valid residence permit. It meant she could not be treated as a stranded visitor and was advised to wait two years for the visa to expire, when she could be deported.
Selina said: “I didn’t speak Arabic or French, the local languages, so I couldn’t get a lawyer or even find a job to get by. I didn’t have any possessions.”
Having grown up in care, Selina’s only adult family connection in the UK was her sister. She hitched a ride to the southern city of Gabes, where she managed to borrow a phone to call her sister, begging for £200 to buy an air ticket home.
But her sister was unemployed and could not afford to lend her the money. Selina said: “I also called an ex-husband but he also refused to help me.”
In the months that followed, she said she slept rough on the streets.
She would drink from a well, where other poor women also gathered, and slept in a small alcove she found.
Occasionally, she would be allowed to use the toilet in coffee shops.
She claimed that by day she resorted to begging on the steps of a mosque.
Selina explained: “There were two types of poor women in Gabes – prostitutes and beggars. I refused to sell my body, so I sat begging.
"I’d make roughly a pound a day. This would buy me a bread roll and some triangles of cheese.”
In March 2013, Selina’s visa expired, making it illegal for her to stay in Tunisia. She turned herself in to the authorities and was deported the same week.
Selina returned to London with no money, no home, no job and no possessions. Her son had been convicted of burglary and put in a youth detention centre. Her daughter has chosen to continue living with her sister. Selina sees them just once a month.
She said: “I had a decent job and a house in Chelsea. I threw it all away for a man masquerading as my true love.
“I thought Nizar was my soulmate but he would have said anything to get his hands on a visa.
“The second he realised I couldn’t get him one, he couldn’t have cared less. It’s hard accepting that you’ve been used.”
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