Heidi Hepworth, 44, and Mamadou ‘Salieu’ Jallow (Picture: Facebook)

A woman who left her husband of 23 years and nine children to go meet a toyboy lover in Gambia apparently has a tattoo of her new partner’s name on her bum.

Heidi Hepworth’s estranged husband Andy made the claim after she appeared on ITV 1’s Loose Women to defend her actions.

He added his 44-year-old wife was ‘horrible’ and a ‘buffoon’ after she left him for Mamadou ‘Salieu’ Jallow, 32, who she met on Facebook.

‘It’s become a joke now, she’s an idiot and has apparently got his name on her backside – she’s in cloud cuckoo land, that’s where she’s at,’ Mr Hepworth, from Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham, said.

He claimed Mr Jallow was only interested in getting money from his wife and he’d apparently been in touch with four people who’d also been duped by him.

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Heidi Hepworth on ITV 1’s ‘Loose Women’ (Picture: Rex)

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But Mrs Hepworth defended her actions and said she only left her children for a month and the trip to Banjul, Gambia, was pre-planned.

She added only three of them are under 16.

‘There were only three of them left behind who I would have loved to take,’ she said on Loose Women.

‘They were left with my older daughter, she’s 28. I went for a month. They went to school from home and stayed in their own home. It was planned for months.’

Mrs Hepworth even claimed she had been driven to the airport by her husband and he told her to be ‘careful’ and ‘safe’ before heading to Africa.

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The mum-of-nine R) defended her actions (Picture: Rex)

She added: ‘We fell in love. I met him on Facebook. Salieu contacted me out of the blue. We got talking, just chit chat. Just a friend request.

‘We just chatted for three or four months. My marriage was over. The marriage had many, many turns in the road as it went down that straight, as marriages do, you separate. It went stale.’

Mrs Hepworth said Mr Jallow currently had no plans to move to the UK but regularly visited the country to see his brother’s son, whose mum died.

She also doesn’t plan to move to Gambia although she revealed she loved him so much she had got his photo on her bank card.

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Andy and Heidi Hepworth on their wedding day (Picture: Facebook)

Mr Hepworth, also 44, wasn’t convinced though and criticised his wife for her actions, saying: ‘A caring mum wouldn’t go off gallivanting around Africa with her new boyfriend. The person she has become is horrible. She was a loving, caring mum.’

He also claimed she had converted to Islam.

They have six children together and a further three are from Mrs Hepworth’s previous marriage.

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