A couple have divorced after the husband was caught having a “virtual affair” with a female character in an online game.

David Pollard and Amy Taylor met in an online chat room in 2003 and married after discovering a shared love of the internet game Second Life.

In the game, players create characters known as avatars, which then interact with others in a virtual world. To his wife's horror, Mr Pollard's interaction included virtual infidelity with a female character playing the role of a prostitute. Ms Taylor said yesterday that her husband had been guilty of the “ultimate betrayal”, even though he had never met the real person behind his online affair.

Mr Pollard, whose Second Life character is called Dave Barmy, and Ms Taylor, who calls herself Laura Skye, apparently spent as much of their marriage interacting on Second Life as they did in the real world.

Ms Taylor, 28, filed for divorce on the ground of unreasonable behaviour after her husband admitted falling in love with the virtual female character. She discovered the affair after a rare break from her computer. When she returned from a nap she caught a glimpse of her husband's avatar in a compromising position on a sofa with a female avatar.

She said: “I was so hurt. I just couldn't believe what he'd done. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned, but he didn't see it as a problem and couldn't see why I was so upset. He said I was just making a big fuss and tried to make out it was my fault for not giving him enough attention.”

The couple met in an internet chat room in May 2003 and within six months Ms Taylor had moved from London to Mr Pollard's flat in Newquay, Cornwall. They married at a register office in St Austell in July 2005 and held a virtual wedding for their avatars in Second Life. While their online characters are young, and slim, in real life there is a lot more to Ms Taylor and the balding Mr Pollard.

Ms Taylor's suspicions were aroused in 2007 and she hired a Second Life private investigator. The virtual sleuth, called Markie MacDonald, caught Dave Barmy in flagrante and he apologised to his online and real world wives.

Ms Taylor said: “It has been a very difficult time. I am now just trying to move on with my life. People find love in lots of different ways. Ours was a very serious marriage. It may have started online but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much now it is over. His was the ultimate betrayal.”Mr Pollard, 40, said yesterday that his former wife was more interested in her life online than she was in him. “If I wanted to spend time with her I had to ask.”

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