It was his son Max’s fourth birthday, and the family were enjoying a lavish holiday at Disneyland, staying in a luxurious suite in the exclusive Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.

It was the kind of indulgence, casually paid for by his wife Joyti, that no longer surprised Tony even though he earned a relatively modest living as a chauffeur.

Over the past few years Joyti, a secretary at a City investment bank, had splashed out on a £175,000 Aston Martin and £27,900 Saab convertible, and treated Tony to a £15,000 Goldwing motorbike and Max to a Mercedes bicycle.

She’d cleared her mum’s £30,000 mortgage, bought a £750,000 villa in Cyprus, and offered to set Tony up in a tour-boat business over there.

Joyti wore designer clothes and spent thousands of pounds on Cartier jewellery.

It was an astonishing turnaround for the couple who just a few years earlier had gone bankrupt with a failed sandwich bar.

But their lavish lifestyle was funded by crime – Joyti was the infamous Goldman Sachs PA jailed for seven years in 2004 for stealing £4.4million from her investment bank bosses.

Tony has always maintained he had no idea where the cash came from, but served six months of an 18-month sentence for money laundering.

Four years on, he is unemployed because of his criminal record, and living on benefits.

But he has finally broken his silence and blamed his ex-wife – who was freed from jail last August – for everything.

“The only regret I have is ever setting eyes on Joyti,” says Tony, 54, of Cheam, Surrey.

“I’ll have this hanging over me for the rest of my life, while she’s been turned into some kind of celebrity.

“Going to prison for a crime I didn’t commit was hell.

"I felt betrayed and angry that I’d been dragged into such a mess.”

Incredibly, Tony insists he believed his wife was simply earning huge bonuses at work.

“She was my wife and I trusted her,” he says. “Contrary to what people might think, there was no champagne or lavish parties.

"I paid the mortgage and the bills, and if I borrowed 20 quid from Joyti, I always paid her back.”

It’s difficult not to raise an eyebrow – but his ex-wife has always maintained Tony knew nothing.

The couple met in 1995 and married eight months later.

Their son Max was born in 1997, and the following year Joyti became a £7.50-an-hour temp at Goldman Sachs.

Within a year she was a permanent PA earning £28,000 a year, and it was then that her lavish spending began.

At this point you wonder whether Tony is one of the least curious men in history.

He says: “I had no suspicion about what Joyti was doing.

“She convinced me Goldman Sachs was rewarding her with huge bonuses, and that didn’t sound unreasonable considering how many hours she put in.”

He claims Joyti also told him she was earning extra by working as a City trader for a few hours a day.

“One day, over lunch, she said she’d cleared a £50,000 profit,” he remembers. “I almost choked on my food.”

They were planning a permanent move to their Cyprus villa when she was arrested on May 2, 2002.

One of her bosses became suspicious after noticing a bank account had run surprisingly low and called in police, who discovered she had withdrawn millions by writing cheques to herself.

Joyti had made one final huge transfer of £2.4million, which the court heard she was planning to use to fund a new life in Cyprus for her family.

Following her trial, Joyti served nearly four years of her sentence, and Goldman Sachs recovered most of the money she stole.

Tony and Joyti divorced last September, and three months later he married new love Jacqueline Havelock-Hill, 46.

They live in the rented home Tony used to share with Joyti, while Joyti lives with son Max and her new boyfriend in a flat across the road.

Tony says: “I used to be a £50,000-a-year chauffeur, but now I rely on handouts.

“But I’m incredibly lucky to have a great new wife and I’m not going to let what happened in the past affect my relationship.”

No payment was made to Tony De-Laurey for this story.

Have you ever been deceived by your partner? Did you forgive them? Do you think you can continue to live a normal life with your partner afterwards? Or, like Tony, would you never want to set eyes on them again?

CLICK HERE NOW TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Photography: Thomas Skovsende, National Pictures, Getty Images Grooming: Oonagh Connor