Gran who married Egyptian toyboy demands he's deported after 'taking £25k'
It was the unlikely love match that had the nation choking on their morning cuppa – the frank and frisky 80-year-old, her 34-year-old Egyptian toy boy… and THAT chat with Phil and Holly about K-Y Jelly.
But then Iris Jones announced in June that she had kicked Mohamed Ibrahim out of her home after two years of marriage – and replaced him with a Bengal cat named Mr Tibbs. And now Iris has revealed that as well as wanting Mohamed out of her home, she has asked the Home Office to turn down his visa renewal and deport him – claiming he has refused to return £25,000 she lent him. Yet despite the whirlwind romance wreaking a trail of havoc in her life, indomitable Iris, 84, says she has not given up on finding love. Her talk of nights of passion with Mohamed had taken viewers by surprise when the couple appeared on ITV’s This Morning in 2020.
After more than 40 years divorced, she told how she had met Mohamed for the first time after five months chatting online – and her 35-year dry spell had melted away in the desert heat. Mohamed, then just 34, had been in an arranged marriage for 10 years when they first spoke on Facebook. Within a month he had proposed to Iris – and on her first trip to see him the love-struck mum had secretly planned to accept.
Iris with her Bengal cat (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)And while that did not go as planned due to a mix-up with documents, less than a year later they had wed in Cairo and Mohamed arrived in the UK to live. But just months after their second anniversary in June, Iris kicked him out – and now claims he had taken her for a ride by failing to return £25,000 in loans. Mohamed denies that allegation. Speaking from her home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, Iris says: “I feel violated, and stupid. I thought it would never happen to me but of course, it did.
“The bank warned me, the police warned me, my family and friends warned me. But I didn’t listen. I was blinded by love. He doesn’t deserve a UK visa with the way he treated me. I’m worried he might do the same to someone else.” Bank statements seen by our reporter show retired legal secretary Iris sent Mohamed transfers totalling more than £25,000 after he came to the UK in 2021.
And after finally breaking up in the wake of months of arguing, she has now asked the Home Office to reject his application to extend his spousal visa. Iris adds: “I know that for the Home Office to deport him, I need to divorce him, but that’s easier said than done. I’m broke, because he has all my money. He hasn’t got British citizenship so is still an Egyptian national.” Home Office rules say that if your visa is based on your relationship you must notify them if you divorce or separate. But you can still apply to extend your visa or to live permanently in the UK.
Iris believes Mohamed will not meet the criteria. She says: “His spousal visa is up for renewal on November 14. I don’t know what will happen then. He doesn’t want to go back to Egypt, he hates it there. He was using me to get away from Egypt.” For his part, Mohamed denies Iris’s claims, telling our reporter that her allegations are “false”.
Iris – who has sons Darren, 56, and Steve, 57 – got chatting to Mohamed on Facebook in June 2019 after she joined a group for atheists. She says: “He showered me with compliments. I thought, ‘How can I feel this way about someone who is young enough to be my grandson?’ But then I thought, ‘Age is just a number’. I thought it was true love. When I first met him I was in love with him so much I think I even told him he could have my bungalow.”
Iris flew to Cairo to meet Mohamed for the first time in the November – with a wedding dress in her bag. In the end it was on her third visit, in 2020, that they wed. She had kept her plans secret from Steve and Darren – even promising them before she flew that she would not tie the knot.
Iris kicked Mohamed out of their house just two years in to the marriage
Iris kept her wedding plans secretThey were left in shock when she returned and told them that the man who was almost two decades younger than them was now their stepfather. Darren says he had warned his mum from the beginning that she risked putting her savings in jeopardy by jumping in so quickly.
He and Steve only found out about their mother’s payments to Mohamed after she broke up with him. Darren says: “When their relationship started, my mum came around my house like a love-struck teenager. I said she should leave him alone but she didn’t listen. When I picked her up from Bristol Airport after they married I wasn’t very happy. But after he came over I got used to it. I’d never seen my mum so happy.”
But Darren’s suspicions that Iris was making unwise financial decisions led to a breakdown between the two. Iris, who now volunteers in a charity shop, claims the payments – made over the course of just over a year – were loans which Mohamed has not repaid. When she told Darren about the payments he confronted Mohamed in the street.
Darren claims: “I was so angry. Mum was blinded by love. I saw him in town and I challenged him about the money. As soon as he saw me he stuck his finger up at me and walked into a chip shop. I followed him in saying, ‘How dare you do that to my mum?’” Despite Darren’s doubts, Iris still clings to the hope that Mohamed may have once loved her. She says their relationship began to sour after they started rowing regularly about her will. Iris had changed it to let him stay in her bungalow for 18 months after her death – with ownership of the property going to eldest son Steve.
Iris with her toy boyBut she claims Mohamed felt he should be the one to inherit the property, valued at £260,000. She says: “When he realised he wasn’t inheriting the bungalow that seemed like the beginning of the end. The rows were always about the bungalow. We had one every week.
“At one point he told me he would give me the names and numbers of women who were coming on to him at Tesco, where he was a security guard, if I gave him my bungalow.” Darren and Iris have now patched up their relationship and try to laugh about the whole ordeal.
Darren even jokes that his mum should get a sponsorship from K-Y Jelly. Iris also told on This Morning how their first encounter had been in a “sleazy, run-down” area of Cairo – fearing respectable hotels would frown on their age gap. And although her heart is bruised, she says she is still open to a future romance – but for now has found “new love” with her Bengal cat, Mr Tibbs, a gift from a friend to help her cope. Iris, who lives on £200-a-week pension and disability benefit, says: “If it wasn’t for Mr Tibbs I think I’d have gone under. He’s been my saviour. And he doesn’t answer back like Mohamed.” The Home Office said: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases.”
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