What:I married my boyfriend's dad.

For most teenage girls, ­meeting their boyfriend’s parents is a nerve-racking prospect. But for Vicky Collins it went much better than she could have imagined. In fact, she managed to bag herself a husband.

It wasn’t so good for then boyfriend Shaun Collins, though, who had no idea introducing her to dad Andy would end with them getting engaged behind his back.

Despite Andy being 23 years her senior, Vicky, then 16, couldn’t fight her attraction for him. And one night, after Shaun had gone to bed early, she and Andy slept together. They quickly started a passionate affair and when the truth came out, it blew the family apart.

But somehow eight years on Vicky, Shaun and Andy have rebuilt their relationships.

Charity worker Vicky, now 24, first met Shaun through friends in April 2003. “My friend set us up and I liked him so much I asked him out that day,” she recalls. The young couple saw each other every few days and a month into their relationship, Shaun took Vicky round to his dad’s work.

“I thought Andy could be his brother, he looked so young,” ­recalls Vicky, from Littlehampton, West Sussex.

After his parents’ divorce in 2000, Shaun chose to live with his dad, while his younger brother and sister stayed with their mum. And when Vicky later phoned their house to speak to her ­boyfriend, she thought she ­recognised the voice answering.

“I was being a bit naughty and flirty,” she remembers.

“I thought I was talking to my boyfriend! Then he said, ‘I’ll go and get Shaun!’ It was so ­embarrassing.”

Neither Shaun nor Vicky could drive, so a few weeks later Andy offered his son’s girlfriend a lift home one night.

“We were chatting away but it was clear we had nothing in common,” Vicky says. “I’m quite loud and he’s very gentle and quiet. I’m not sure what ­attracted us to each other, but they do say opposites attract.”

Andy says: “I’d never met anyone like Vicky before. She dressed like a tomboy and I was intrigued.”

At the time, Vicky’s mum wasn’t well and she struggled to care for her. “I talked to Andy about the pressure of looking after mum and he was a good listener,” she recalls. But Shaun was sympathetic too and said she should move in with him.

“I couldn’t wait to move into Shaun and Andy’s house in Bognor Regis and start a life of my own,” explains Vicky. Then one night in June 2003, the three were watching TV. Vicky was sitting affectionately on her boyfriend’s lap.

“I complained his legs were bony and I was uncomfortable. “Then I said, ‘Andy, maybe you’re less bony.’

“I don’t think Shaun was that pleased when I went to sit on his dad’s lap instead.”

Feeling rejected, Shaun went to bed. “I was just joking and was about to get up when Andy’s hand accidentally brushed against my stomach.”

Andy confessed she was the first woman he’d touched in the three years since his marriage ended.

“The electricity between us was amazing,” recalls Vicky. “I just got swept up by the moment.”

After kissing on the sofa, she suggested they go upstairs – even though her boyfriend was in the next room.

“Spending the night with Andy was different to anything I’d had before,” she says. “My previous experiences were just quickies with teenage boys. I’m not usually the cheating type, but it just felt right.”

When Vicky woke up the next morning, Andy had ­already gone to work. “I sat up with a jolt. I’d spent all night in Andy’s room and I was ­worried Shaun would guess what had happened,” she says.

Sneaking out of Andy’s room, she froze when she came face to face with her ­boyfriend on
the landing.

“I panicked and said that Andy had slept on the sofa and offered me his bed.” But a few days later, Shaun went on a week-long holiday with a friend. As he said goodbye to his girlfriend and dad, he had no idea what would happen.

With Shaun gone, Vicky and Andy seized the ­opportunity for romance to ­blossom. “She was a lot younger than me and the age gap was ­obvious, she was quite immature,” admits Andy. “But I liked how fun-loving and bubbly she was. That’s what was so attractive about Vicky.

“I did feel guilty as she was Shaun’s girlfriend but it felt so natural that we couldn’t stop ourselves.”

When Shaun returned, Vicky was confused about her feelings, so she went back to being Shaun’s ­girlfriend. “Andy and I didn’t talk about Shaun,” she says. “We knew it was wrong, but I guess we thought it was fun sneaking around.”

One night two weeks later, everything changed as Vicky and Andy were chatting.

“We were just talking and laughing and I asked Vicky to marry me,” recalls Andy, 47. “It just slipped out. When she said yes, I was over the moon.”

To prove he was serious, he took Vicky to buy a ring the next day.

“It was so romantic and I was wrapped up in the moment – I forgot about Shaun,” Vicky says. Excited about her ­engagement, she called up a friend to tell her – but she didn’t share Vicky’s enthusiasm. When her friend ­insisted she confess all to Shaun, the couple knew it was time to own up. But it was too late. Someone had already told him.

“I had an inkling there was ­something going on but I didn’t want to believe it,” Shaun says now.

“Not only were they sleeping together – they were engaged! It was ­awful, I felt betrayed by both of them.”

Devastated, he moved out of his dad’s house and in with his mum. Vicky hadn’t ­officially moved in with Shaun yet but she had packed all of her things so she moved to Bognor Regis as planned – to live with Andy ­instead. Vicky says: “Shaun wouldn’t talk to me, he was really hurt.”

Her parents were shocked, too, when they found out Vicky was engaged to a man their own age. They initially refused to sign the permission forms for their under-18 daughter to get married. “But ­eventually they agreed when they saw how happy Andy made me,” Vicky says.

Andy was keen to marry before he turned 40 so they started planning their ­wedding and booked a church in Littlehampton for November 15, 2003 – the day before his birthday.

Vicky says: “People told me it wouldn’t last. Some sent abusive messages and no one understood that we were in love. Some of my friends just made fun of the age gap, but once they met Andy they saw how lovely he was.”

Still, Vicky was embarrassed to walk down the street holding her fiance’s hand. “I worried what people would think, we looked like father and daughter.”

Andy adds: “It was the first time I’d been happy in years. She brought out the young, fun side of me.”

Desperate to save his relationship with his son once the secret was out, Andy called Shaun.

After a week, Shaun relented and spoke to him. “I agreed to talk to Dad. I was angry but you only get one dad and I didn’t want to lose him altogether,” Shaun says.

Vicky was relieved they had been reunited, although he couldn’t ­forgive her. And with the wedding looming, Shaun couldn’t think of anything worse than watching his ex-girlfriend marry his dad.

“I didn’t want to go,” he says. “I couldn’t even look at Vicky and avoided seeing them whenever I could,” Shaun recalls.

Eventually, he agreed to attend the wedding, for his dad’s sake.

Shaun says: “It was really awkward and the thought of them together was very strange for me.

“When I arrived, Vicky walked over to me in her wedding dress to say hello. It was a difficult, ­especially posing with Vicky and Dad in the wedding photographs. But I couldn’t deny that Dad seemed happy for the first time in years.”

Vicky says: “I was glad Shaun decided to come. I don’t think he said congratulations and he didn’t smile in the photos, but I suppose being there was hard enough.”

Vicky was the first of her friends to marry at just 16 and a few years later she wanted to be a mum.

Andy had had a vasectomy and even though he had it reversed, Vicky hasn’t fallen pregnant. The couple accept it may never happen. For now, though, they’re just happy Shaun has forgiven them. “Most people can’t believe I used to go out with my stepson, but it’s all worked out for the best,” says Vicky. Even Shaun agrees.

“Gradually, Vicky and I started talking again and now we’re pretty good friends. No one thought it would last, including me, but they’ve been together eight years so I suppose it was meant to be all along.”