MEDI SIADATAN believes that his success and happiness are due to his polygamy. He has three wives, twelve children, a busy design consultancy and homes in Britain and Milan.

Mr Siadatan, 53, an Iranian who came to Britain from Italy in 1975, said that it was against human nature to wed only one person. “Polygamy is a very natural thing. Men are born like this. It is in a man’s nature to take more than one wife.”

His three wives — two Italian and one English — converted to Islam and married him in a Muslim ceremony. He has one child with Cinzia, 42, whom he married in 1987, and six children with Stefania, 37, whom he married in 1989.

He met his third wife, Sarah, 31, while she was working in one of his restaurants in Kidderminster, Worcesteshire, and married her in 1993. She was a Baptist but is now a Muslim. She has one child and lives with the other two wives in Walsall, West Midlands.

Mr Siadatan, who has four grown-up children from his first marriage in this country, said that he had had a mistress but had felt bad about lying to his wife. He had become polygamous after that experience because he thought it was more honest than having an affair.

“I’m living in good harmony, we live together very well, the women have no jealousy,” he said. “They understand Islam and I have to respect their feelings. They know I have enough love for all of them.”

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