The ceremony took four years to plan, 40 guests attended, and the couple’s twin boys were christened following the service.

After a reception in the workingmen’s club, the newly-weds left for their honeymoon… in a police cell. Mark Tallentire reports on the wedding from hell.

HARRY ARNOLD and his new wife Claire will certainly remember their wedding day, after spending their first night of wedded bliss in police cells.

Police were called after the pair went for a smoke at the entrance to Durham bus station, prompting a security guard to ask them to stub it out or leave.

Within minutes, the newlyweds were in the back of separate police cars, on their way to spending the next few hours in the cells at Durham police station.

Mrs Forshaw-Arnold said: “I was crying my eyes out. I was devastated. The police said: ‘We’ve never had a bride and groom in before’.”

The new bride, 34, was released in the early hours of the morning, before being given a lift home by a police officer.

Mr Arnold, who was also celebrating his 43rd birthday, was freed at 4.30am, but had to walk back to the family home, five miles away, near Coxhoe.

He said: “They put handcuffs on me and chucked me in the car. I said: ‘What are you doing?

I’ve just been married’.”

The couple were married in a ceremony that had taken four years to plan, at Durham Register Office, on the morning of Monday, August 10, with 40 guests attending.

Immediately after the ceremony, their two-and-a-halfyear- old twin boys, Thomas and David, were christened.

Mrs Forshaw-Arnold said: “The wedding and the christening were great.

Everybody was crying. Both the ceremonies went really well.

“But it was a nightmare wedding night.”

After the ceremony, the couple celebrated with friends and family, including daughters Claire, 15, Emma, 12, and Caitlyn, ten, and Mrs Forshaw- Arnold’s father, David Forshaw, nicknamed Popeye, at Coxhoe Workingmen’s Club.

In the evening, the newly-weds left for a first romantic meal together as husband and wife at The Water House, a Wetherspoons pub, in North Road, Durham.

The couple, nicknamed HBomb and Frazzle, shared a bottle of wine and Mr Arnold had a pint of beer.

Mrs Forshaw-Arnold, who was wearing a garter bearing a plastic imitation gun, said: “We’d had a stressful day and were tired. We just wanted to have a glass of wine and come home.”

But it was when they were waiting to catch a bus back home to Coxhoe, at about 9.20pm, and they decided to light up, that their problems started.

A Durham Police spokesman said the couple were arrested for being drunk and disorderly. He said they admitted the offence and were cautioned.