When Castleford Tigers rugby league star Joe Westerman was caught in flagrante with another woman, it looked like life was over for his mortified and betrayed wife. But now SHE is having the last laugh – and has truly found her happily ever after

As the venue for a secret tryst with a woman who wasn’t his wife, Rugby League star Joe Westerman could not have chosen anything bleaker.

The Castleford Tigers player had been on a 15-hour drinking session, and in an alleyway behind a Greggs in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, he was seen in flagrante with a married woman who we are choosing not to name.

The sordid night-time encounter would have remained between them and their consciences were the pair not caught on video; for the alley was well-lit and visible from a nearby high street. In February 2023, a mortifying seven-second clip was duly posted on social media and went viral, leaving Westerman’s wife of nine years, Lauren, devastated and humiliated.

The schoolteacher even felt obliged to publicly deny she was the woman in the graphic footage before throwing her husband, then 33, out of the family home.

At the time, the mother-of-three vowed there was ‘one trillion per cent’ not a chance she would take him back, vowing to rebuild a life for her and her children without him.

Now, the Daily Mail can reveal that Lauren, 38, has done just that – by tying the knot with her ‘best friend’, father-of-three Karl Holmes, also 38.

The couple, who began dating in late 2023, married last month and have subsequently shared online a string of photographs and videos from their big day.

Lauren, who has now taken her new husband’s surname, wrote on Facebook: ‘Someone once told me that you’ll only ever be happy in life if you marry your best friend and I feel so lucky to be doing just that.’

Sharing photographs from the celebrations, she added: ‘Thank you again to everyone who came and celebrated with us. It really was the best day of our whole lives.’

A family friend told the Daily Mail the wedding felt like a particularly sweet ending after the very public collapse of Lauren’s marriage to former England international Westerman.

The friend said: ‘Something so good has come from something so bad.

‘Lauren was mortified by what Joe did to her. She is a very private person and for that footage to go viral was humiliating.

‘I especially felt for their eldest daughter, who was at senior school at the time.

‘It was awful for the family, but Lauren has come through it. Now she’s happy and that’s what matters.

Today, HGV mechanic Karl, who has ‘been through some dark times as well’, is helping her ‘learn how to trust again’.

The couple’s wedding marks a striking reversal of fortunes for Lauren, whose family life was shattered overnight when Westerman’s drunken antics became headline news.

The sportsman was fined by his Super League club, ordered to carry out community work and, perhaps unsurprisingly, was taunted mercilessly by rival supporters.

He blamed his troubled relationship with alcohol and claimed he could remember nothing of his shocking infidelity.

In desperate messages to Lauren afterwards, he grovelled: ‘I can’t explain what happened cos I physically can’t remember. It’s disgusting and I now have to live with it forever. Losing you and the kids is heart-breaking Lauren, you deserve so much better.

‘You always said alcohol would f*** me up. Story of my life. I miss you like crazy. U was perfect. I need you to know I can’t remember anything about that night. I look like a zombie.’

The woman involved was never publicly identified, although she was known to Westerman, according to what Lauren said at the time.

Clarifying that the mystery woman was not her, she wrote: ‘Can I make this VERY clear that this is NOT me.

‘We have three children one of whom is almost 15 and she doesn’t need to see things like this all over social media!’

She later added: ‘What kind of example would I be setting to my children – particularly my girls – if I were to give it another go?

‘I want them to know that this is not alright, that it isn’t acceptable behaviour in a relationship and that we all have self-worth.’

She added: ‘Truth is, he only told me because it was on social media. But I’m glad it was found because the thought of kissing him after that just makes me feel sick.’

Karl, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lauren’s 6ft 4in ex, proposed during a trip to Gran Canaria in April and has repeatedly gushed over his new wife on social media.

In one loving Facebook post, he wrote: ‘This woman is truly one in a million no matter what ideas I come up with, she goes with it.

‘Find yourself a women like this and nothing’s ever a worry or problem again.

‘No matter what, she has my back and nothing is too much. Love you darling, never stop being you.’

At the couple’s wedding reception, an emotional Karl told guests: ‘I would never, ever change anything of her. She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met and I will stick by her.’

The friend, who attended the wedding celebrations at the 19th-century Carleton Grange in Pontefract, added: ‘Her relationship with Joe wasn’t healthy.

‘Even though they’d been together since they were teenagers, things had gone downhill – well before that video.

‘But she has moved on completely now. She and Karl are really happy together.

‘He was in pieces for most of the wedding day. You can you see just how much he cares for her.’

The couple, who had known each other as friends for years, honeymooned in Morocco with all six children from their previous relationships.

Meanwhile, Westerman, who this month hung up his rugby boots after a two-decade career, has also rebuilt his life.

He struck up a romance with mother-of-two estate agent Alison Hopkinson, 37, soon after his night of shame.

The couple have been engaged for about two years and are said to be finalising their own wedding plans.

Westerman issued a public apology in the wake of the scandal and admitted he had made a ‘massive mistake’.

He said in an interview months later: ‘I’m pretty good at leaving stuff off the field when I walk over that line.

‘But it’s made me have to re-evaluate a lot of things. I am happier off the field and my kids seem happier, which is important as it was hard on them. And it’s very amicable at the moment [with Lauren].’

In June, he announced he had joined his father at the family’s Pontefract-based construction firm, though declined to comment when approached by the Daily Mail. Here’s hoping he treats his new fiancé better than he did his last.