Love triangle of UK couple & ‘home wrecker’ Ukraine refugee

When Tony Garnett and his longtime partner Lorna decided to take in a displaced Ukrainian, they had no idea that it would be the end of their family.

But Tony and refugee Sofiia Karkadym, who moved in with the couple and their two young children on May 4, quickly bonded through the language of love — him speaking Slovakian and her cooing back in Ukrainian.

Before long, it went beyond talk. Sofiia reportedly took to sashaying around the house in red lipstick and low-cut tops, always sure to get dolled up right around the time when Tony arrived home from his job as a security guard, according to the Sun.

Within days, Sofiia, 22, and Tony, 29, were going to the gym together or retiring to his car for intimate chats.

During one of their tête-à-têtes, Sofiia made clear that she had a high opinion of her host. As Tony told the Sun, “She told me privately, ‘Lorna is lucky to have you.’”

But a friend from the block who spotted them told Lorna, who Tony was with for 10 years, to beware. “My neighbor came over to see me and said she was concerned,” Lorna told the Sun. “She said they’d been a little touchy-feely and she didn’t like the look of it.”

Inside the couple’s home, where their two children were made to share a room in order to create space for Sofiia, the East-meets-West alliance was getting friendlier by the day.

“We were finding excuses to touch and brush against each other,” Tony acknowledged. “It was very flirtatious.”

Lorna could stand only so much. “It caused arguments; I can understand that,” Tony admitted. “When I got in at night, Sofiia would be the one who made a meal for me to try.”

Recalling that Lorna became increasingly jealous, Tony stated that she had “major arguments with Sofiia, asking her why she was with me all the time.” She’d ask Sofiia, “Why are you following him around?”

Within days of their guest’s arrival, Tony said, “Sofia told me she didn’t know whether she could continue to live with us under these circumstances.”

No doubt, Lorna had similar concerns: “I started to feel like the third wheel as they sat on the sofa, laughing and joking while I was ignored. I suddenly felt unwelcome in my own home.”

Adding insult to injury: The couple’s two kids, six and three, followed their dad’s lead and took a shine to Sofiia.

Ironically, all of this began out of what Tony called a desire “to do the right thing.” He and Lorna had placed their contact details on Facebook, offering a room in their home to a Ukrainian refugee. As kismet would have it, Sofiia was first to respond.

“I decided it was the right thing to do, to put a roof over someone’s head and help them when they were in desperate need,” Lorna said.

She did not expect the neediness to include Sofiia, an IT manager in her home country, taking liberties with Tony. While Sofiia insists that things did not start out that way, Lorna sees it differently. She maintains that the blond-haired charmer “set her sights on Anthony from the start, decided she wanted him.”

And Tony pretty much agrees: “We clicked right from the start. It was something neither of us could stop.”

Nevertheless, Lorna, at the end of her rope after 10 days of shameless flirtations and more, finally exploded on May 14.

“Seeing we were becoming close was just too much,” said Tony. “It came to a head when [Lorna] really went at Sofiia, yelling at her, using harsh language that left her in tears. [Sofiia] said she didn’t feel she could stay under our roof anymore and something inside me clicked.”

Unable to sublimate his strong feelings, Tony told his soon-to-be-former girlfriend, “If she’s going, I’m going.”

He added to the Sun: “I knew I couldn’t give it up and all of a sudden it seemed like a no-brainer. We both packed our bags and moved into my mum and dad’s home together.”

The whole thing has left Lorna miffed. “They barely know each other,” she said after Tony split. “It’s crazy. He’s walked out for a woman he’s known for 10 days. Until she arrived, we were a normal happy family.”

From the perspective of Sofiia, however, Lorna only has herself to blame for the bust-up: “Her constant suspicion, the tension, it just pushed me and Tony closer together. She created this situation by constantly suggesting something was going on when it wasn’t. So this is her fault … I’m not a home-wrecker.”

But even Tony’s parents might disagree with that assessment. While they initially allowed the couple to share a bed in their home, the elder Garretts appear to have developed second thoughts.

According to the Sun, Tony and Sofiia were “turfed out” after their story went viral. “The s–t has really hit the fan,” said Tony, who, ironically, is now a bit of a refugee himself, as he seeks a new place to live. “We know people are upset but we couldn’t fight it.”

Most upset of all, it seems, is Lorna. “Everything I knew has been turned on its head in the space of two weeks,” fumed the jilted girlfriend. Speaking of Sofiia, Lorna insisted, “She didn’t care about the devastation that was left behind.”