Peter Saunders, is only 47 years old, and has the sole responsibility of became a single father to his dozen offspring – whose ages range from 22 years down to just 19 months after when his wife, Tabitha, 39, moved 260 miles away to set up home with a security guard.
Last night Mr Saunders branded his ex-wife ‘despicable’ for putting her boyfriend, Colt Nimes, 32, who she has since married, before her family.
Unemployed Mr Saunders – who has not worked for more than a decade and receives £2,000 in benefits each month – said: ‘I don’t think the kids will ever forget what she’s done.
‘It’s despicable. Walking out on the whole family and leaving me to do it all on my own.
'It is hard with 12 of them running around and sometimes I wonder what on earth I’m doing, but I couldn’t be without them. I love them all to bits.
‘How a mum can do that to her kids is beyond me.’
Mr Saunders met his wife around 20 years ago when their parents were neighbours.
By the time the couple married in 1996, Mrs Nimes already had a son, Matthew, now 22, by another man and had given birth to their first daughter, Rhiannon, 18.
They went on to have another ten children – Ben, 16, Jack, 14, Josh, 13, Adam, 12, Blake, ten, Rhys, nine, Lillie, seven, Peter Jnr, six, Aston, three, and Beth, 19 months.
However, in March last year – when her youngest was just 12 weeks old – Mrs Nimes left the couple’s terraced home, in Rhyl, North Wales, to live with Mr Nimes in Southampton.
Mr Saunders, a convicted drug dealer, discovered his wife had been cheating on him after finding text messages on her phone.
She had met Mr Nimes when they worked as security guards at the London 2012 Olympics.
Initially, Mrs Nimes took the two youngest children – Beth and Aston – with her, but they were returned to their father after she failed to attend a court hearing.
She now sees the children ‘every five or six weeks’ but Mr Saunders maintains that they hardly miss their mother.
‘She never showed them any affection, so we’re probably better off [without her],’ he said.
‘I don’t think the kids will ever forget what she’s done'
Peter Saunders, 47, father-of-12
‘My feelings for her have never changed. I don’t think she’s a bad mother – she just can’t cope, she’s got mental problems, post-natal depression and all that and needs help.
‘She has never stopped sleeping with me even though she’s with him, she comes back every five or six weeks to see the kids, but it’s only the youngest ones that really miss her.’
Mr Saunders, a former painter and decorator originally from Roehampton, south London, is currently wearing an electronic tag and must obey a night-time curfew after he and Matthew pleaded guilty to dealing cannabis earlier this month.
Police discovered two boxes of cannabis – one among Christmas presents – which contained 43g of the drug, valued at about £450, in a raid last December.
Mr Saunders claimed that he only smoked the drug to help relieve pain in his feet caused by diabetes.
But messages found on his stepson’s mobile phone revealed that people were contacting him via his Facebook profile to attempt to buy the drug.
Judge Rhys Rowlands spared Mr Saunders and his stepson prison after hearing that the children would end up in care if they were jailed.
Instead they were handed 12-month sentences, suspended for two years.
Mr Saunders, who drives a Jaguar, added: ‘I can’t save any money – it’s always used one way or another.
‘It’s hard financially but I get quite a bit in benefits and I am a good shopper. I only ever buy in bulk when there are offers on.’
Last night Mrs Nimes could not be contacted, but she told the Sun: ‘This is about my ex-husband so I’ve got nothing to say. P*** off.’
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