- EXCLUSIVE: Rob Parsons has revealed his personal tragedy to MailOnline
Firefighter Rob Parsons thought he had the perfect life – living in a charming home with his beautiful new wife and the baby daughter they both adored.
But his world came crashing down one day when he was at work and logged on to their dog cam to check on things at home only to find his wife Facetiming another man – and getting their baby to call him ‘Daddy’.
Rob, 34, and his police sergeant wife enjoyed had a whirlwind romance after meeting just before lockdown. They got engaged in Christmas 2021 before welcoming their child the following year.
Yet Rob claims his wife, who MailOnline has chosen not to name, had been in a secret affair with a colleague for three years and, while she signed Rob as father of her daughter on the birth certificate, she knew all along the baby was not his.
A DNA test later confirmed Rob was in fact not the father and he has since been cut off from the little girl he spent months raising and loving, unaware that she wasn’t his daughter.
Revealing his personal tragedy to MailOnline, Rob said he had been at work on that fateful day in June 2023 when the baby was eight months old and wanted to check in with his wife who had been at a doctor’s appointment.
Hours had passed and he heard nothing, which was unusual, so decided to check the camera he used to monitor their two dogs – a beagle called Holly and their rottweiler Hector – to see if she had made it home okay.
Rob said: ‘As soon as I turned on the camera, I saw my wife sitting on the floor with our daughter on her lap on Facetime. She was saying “say thank you to Daddy for buying you the presents yesterday” then was saying “are you showing Daddy your present”.
‘I re-watched that video probably 100 times while I was at work checking what she said. As soon as she hung up, she texted me saying ‘all good, baby’s just being a pain’.’
In the heat of the moment Rob responded to her immediately telling his wife what he had witnessed – adding: ‘it must be hard for the baby, with you calling me daddy when I’m home – then when I am at work you are meeting with her real dad’.
Rob’s wife bluntly denied that their baby had another father. She told him ‘the baby calls everyone Daddy’ before explaining that she had been struggling as a new mother, and her colleague had suggested they play ‘happy families’ while Rob was at work to ease the burden.
Rob said: ‘We had a normal, healthy relationship. She never told me she had any issues. Never told me she was struggling. We obviously had the sleepless nights and endless tears as you do when you have a newborn but as far as I was concerned that was being married, loving each other and having a newborn baby to deal with.’
Rob never had his suspicions but when he saw the Facetime he remembered a strange message he received the night before his wedding from a man he didn’t know who asked him if he was Rob marrying the police sergeant.
When he confirmed he was marrying her, the stranger just sent his congratulations and said ‘she’s a great girl’. Rob then asked his wife how she knew him and she said he was just a friend from work.
For weeks Rob’s wife continued to deny that he wasn’t the father, while he slept on the sofa and his wife took the baby to see her parents.
Eventually Rob plucked up the courage to learn the truth and used a DNA test on the baby. Four days later it confirmed he was not the biological father.
After confronting his wife – in front of both of their mothers – Rob left the house and moved back in with his parents.
He later contacted the girlfriend of his wife’s lover who told him that the affair had been going on for three years.
Reflecting on his ordeal, Rob said: ‘I would tell my friends just imagine the most outrageous Jeremy Kyle story you have ever heard and times it by 100. What has happened, you couldn’t make it up.
‘The fact she had the audacity to meet up with him while I was at work and be a happy family, only for me to come home and for her to announce, “Daddy’s home” is unbelievable.’
When the baby’s birth was registered, Rob’s name was on the birth certificate as the father. But he has had nothing to do with her life for eight months – and he was not allowed to attend her first birthday party.
He remains unsure of his rights to custody, as he is not actually the girl’s father, and does not want to make young girl’s life complicated.
He said: ‘I miss her [the baby] like mad. She is 15 months old now. I would do anything to see her again but I will probably never see her again.
‘No matter how much I love her [the baby] I don’t want to complicate her life. She doesn’t deserve to have that complication in her life wondering who is that random man who comes and sees me twice a month?
‘I’d like to think I’d recognise her if I passed her in the street but I don’t know, I’ve not even seen a picture of her in months.’
It affected all Rob’s family, especially his parents who were happily helping look after their first granddaughter.
‘My dad is in his seventies, and it was the first time I ever saw him ball his eyes out,’ he said.
Rob was forced to take six months off work. ‘I was going to sleep hoping I wouldn’t wake up. I wasn’t suicidal, but I wanted to die,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t suicidal because I knew my wife had taken away a granddaughter for my parents, I wasn’t going to let them take away their son as well.’
Since the couple’s split, Rob has been sofa surfing and staying with friends. Their beagle Holly, who Rob’s wife had before meeting him, had to be put down.
Their rottweiler Hector, who was rescued from the RSPCA at six-months-old by the couple when they were together, is living with his mother.
In trying to get his partner to take some accountability for her actions, Rob made a formal complaint to the police claiming one of its employees had broken the law for knowingly falsifying details on a birth certificate, a claim his estranged wife denies.
He also said she broke the police’s code of ethics, but the complaint was rejected.
‘I am still in disbelief about how blatant she is with her lying and sticking to an unbelievable story and how she has acted after being found out,’ Rob said.
His estranged wife declined to comment.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
