Liberal Democrat lothario, 55, who has had a string of lovers is thrown out by his Bulgarian fiancee

Britains’s most unlikely lothario is at it again – serial heartbreaker Lembit Opik has been dumped by his fiancee over his friendship with a glamorous Russian. 

The former Liberal Democrat MP – more famous for the mystifying spell he casts over women than anything he achieved at Westminster – has incurred the wrath of Sabina Vankova after she spotted pictures of him with Natalia Khomutinnkova on what Mr Opik said were work trips to Paris and Nice. 

Following months of counselling to help the couple negotiate an amicable split, Ms Vankova, a Bulgarian lawyer, last week ordered Mr Opik to leave their home in Epsom, Surrey, and move back to his flat in South London. 

Miss Vankova, 36, the mother of the couple’s two-year-old daughter, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I have told Lembit to move out. We have had professional therapy. I don’t want to keep quiet any more. ‘I wish I had never got involved with him. It is a lesson in waiting for the right man to come along.’ 

She is unconvinced by the 55-yearold’s assurances that his trips with Ms Khomutinnkova were connected to his work for Asgardia, an organisation that seeks to find a way to continue the human race outside of Earth. ‘He has been meeting Natalia in France, I think also Milan,’ she said. 

‘I saw the pictures and I realised that when he was coming back from his work trips he had condoms in his bag. ‘It was strange but I believed that he was just away for his job, but now it appears there may have been more to it. 

While away he had bought some new swimming trunks and flip-flops and had been on the beach. Now I believe it must have been a holiday. I can’t believe I actually believed all of his excuses.’ Miss Vankova claimed that Mr Opik – a star of ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity in 2010 – told her that she couldn’t join him on business trips because his colleagues ‘didn’t like’ her. 

She was incensed when she saw a British Airways receipt showing he had spent £68 on Jo Malone perfume and a £25 pair of earrings during a flight in December – gifts she suspects may have been for Miss Khomutinnkova. 

Asked about the split, Miss Vankova said: ‘I have known I wanted to end our relationship since January, but I have tried to make things work for the sake of our daughter. ‘I’ve told him I want to separate – that’s it. I am fed up of him doing the same thing again and again. I need to get out of this relationship.’ 

The couple, who met at a party to celebrate Tim Farron becoming leader of the Lib Dems in 2015, ran into trouble last July when Mr Opik mysteriously called off their wedding, which was scheduled to take place in Walton-onThames, Surrey. 

‘He told me he was postponing it because he said I spend too much time with our daughter, concentrating on her,’ recalled Miss Vankova. ‘He said he would rearrange but he never did. I wonder if it was to do with Natalia and his friendship with her.’ The couple have had troubles before. 

She left the former MP for Montgomeryshire in December 2017 amid claims that he had spent the night at the home of Alex Best, the widow of football legend George Best. Miss Vankova also revealed that when she has challenged Mr Opik, he tries to tell her she is unwell. 

She said: ‘Every time I say something about Natalia and in the past about Alex Best, he says that I am imagining things, that I am mad or that I’m not well. ‘He just wants me to stay quiet and take care of the baby and the house. I really want other women to know not to go out with him.’ 

Mr Opik declined to comment.

Cheeky Girl, weather girl, Wonderbra model… Lembit’s VERY lively love life 

The grey hair, spectacles and squinty smile don’t exactly scream sex god, yet Lembit Opik has proved irresistible to a string of glamorous women. 

The 55-year-old’s reputation as an unlikely lothario began when he broke off his engagement to TV weather girl Sian Lloyd to date a scantily clad member of a Romanian pop group. 

Ms Lloyd was heartbroken in 2006 when the then Lib Dem MP took up with Gabriela Irimia, one half of The Cheeky Girls, who was 17 years his junior. 

Miss Irimia insisted she wasn’t to blame for the break-up and she and Mr Opik got engaged two years later when he proposed at Rome’s Trevi Fountain. 

However, before the couple could walk down the aisle, Miss Irimia revealed they had split after a series of rows. 

She was soon replaced by the then 21-year-old Wonderbra model Katie Green. She met Mr Opik at a cocktail party in 2009 when they joined forces for a campaign called Say No To Size Zero. 

Ms Green later described their fling as ‘a real whirlwind’. In 2010, Mr Opik introduced – via a paid-for interview with Hello magazine – his new 21- year-old girlfriend, Merily McGivern. She said her father was unimpressed by her choice.

‘When my dad found out I was dating Lembit, he Googled him and wasn’t happy,’ she recalled. 

Three years ago, the now presenter for BBC Radio Kent was romantically linked to Alex Best, the former wife of football legend George Best, although he denied they were anything other than friends.