UNEXPECTED ‘GUEST’ CAUSES WEDDING CHAOS

Police were called to St Mark’s church, Froghill, after an outbreak of fighting led to the hurried cancellation of a wedding ceremony.

For Graeme Bailey, 31, and his 28-year-old fiancée Kelly Sparks, Saturday, July 15th should have been the happiest day of their lives. Instead, they found themselves watching with horror as their wedding descended into an orgy of violence that left six people in hospital and led to more than 40 being arrested.

The ceremony, conducted by the Reverend Adrian Small, started ordinarily enough. So much so that that no-one in the congregation noticed the vestry door open and then quietly close again.

The latecomer was a four-year-old Wessex Saddleback sow, who had escaped from a nearby pickup truck, left unattended after sustaining a puncture in Market Street.

Said driver Mick Pitkin: “I was doing a livestock delivery for Rayling’s in Swansdike when the truck got a flat in the town centre. I went looking for a phonebox to ring up and tell them at the farm that I’d be late. When I got back to the truck, I found that the gate at the rear had worked itself loose and Bessie was gone.”

Bessie found her way into the church by following the trail of rice left from an earlier wedding. The transept being thickly carpeted, no-one heard the sound of her trotters as she wandered from the vestry into the front of the church.

Brother of the bride Ian Sparks takes up the story: “The vicar had just reached the point when he asks if anyone knows of any just impediment when suddenly one of them Baileys pipes up and says: ‘Bugger me! She’s a bloody great sow!’ Well that were more than enough for me, so I went over there to his pew and stuck one on him.”

Speaking from his bed in Froghill General, farmer Malcolm Bailey, who is receiving treatment for a broken nose, said: “Well, I looked up from my hymn book to see this beautiful Wessex Saddleback come in from the side door. No-one else seemed to notice her except me, and I was so surprised that the words were out of my mouth before I even knew I’d said them.”

As Mr Sparks launched into Mr Bailey, both sides took this as their cue to leave their seats and start punching each other. With things rapidly descending into chaos, the bride and groom were hustled into the vestry by Rev’d Small, who then telephoned Froghill Constabulary for help.

All 42 of those arrested were later released after being charged with causing an affray. Said Ian Sparks upon leaving the police station: “Of course I feel sorry for Kelly, what with it being her big day and all, but I hate them Baileys, I do. Toffee-nosed bastards the lot of them.”

The fugitive Bessie was recaptured about an hour later, but not before she had bitten three of the wedding guests, urinated on the altar and torn up several of the larger flower arrangements.